Architect compiles the craziest neighbour objections into collection of cartoons

It was Groucho Marx who said, “I don’t know what they have to say, it makes no difference anyway. Whatever it is – I’m against it!”

And that’s so often the attitude of Australians generally to their neighbours’ applications to do any work at all on their own homes, whether renovations and extensions or rebuilds, insists veteran architect Daniel Meszaros.

“As soon as that building notice goes up on a front fence, then all bets are off,” he says, after 45 years of having to deal with building objections – most of which, he claims, run the gamut from stupid to absolutely crazy.

“Torrid emotions of territorial preservation, angst, jealousy, self-importance and a desire to show how clever they are will often overcome neighbours on both sides, and probably to the rear, too.

“It doesn’t matter that the proposed extensions or work might fully comply with all the regulations, these emotions override common sense and neighbourly friendship, even when there’s irrefutable evidence that there’ll be of no detriment at all to their property.

“Of course, there are projects that deserve objections but for every one of those, there are 50 baseless ones, ranging from the petty and plain silly to the downright vicious.”

Meszaros has now collected some of the weirdest and wackiest objections to applications he’s encountered both in his own Melbourne practice, and from colleagues, and illustrated them with cartoons in a collection he’s called Crazy Neighbour Objections.

It’s a way, he believes, of drawing attention to what’s fast becoming a national pastime: complaining and protesting neighbours’ attempts to improve their own living conditions.

Sometimes, the motivation is envy, he believes. Sometimes, a desire for nothing ever to change. Sometimes, a misplaced belief that someone has the sole right to decide what should happen. And occasionally, there are murkier ends.

“Once we had a neighbour complain about absolutely everything one of my clients wanted to do,” he says. “She did everything she could to try to placate her. But she just wouldn’t cooperate at all.

“It became incredibly frustrating … and only later did we discover that she was hoping my client would give up and sell – so her lover could buy the property and be more handily available.”

But the rising volume of objections to building applications can have severe repercussions on projects. It can delay them, make them much more expensive, and lead to terribly bitter, long-running feuds between neighbours.

The situation is becoming worse with every passing year, and will continue to do so, predicts Meszaros, who designs residential projects of all types, as well as working on heritage, commercial, industrial and medical buildings from his offices in North Melbourne.

“I think people are objecting even more and some of their objections are getting stranger and stranger,” Meszaros says. “People are frustrated, they believe there’s more and more development, and they’re feeling disempowered by the processes.

“Objections are a way of making themselves feel heard. As well, they want to feel important and have their say – and that can be for any reason at all, however trivial.”

Among the objections he’s had to deal with have been:

• That woman who wanted to move her lover into the building next door;
• An objection to a neighbour’s TV aerial being slightly over someone’s boundary which meant birds were scared to fly over;
  
• A neighbour excavated to the boundary line 1.2 metres deep without any waterproofing – and then objected to his neighbour’s extension saying that it had caused damp in his house;
• A neighbour objected to a house, saying she’d be able to see it when standing in her bath;
  
• A frequent refrain from an objector is that, “This isn’t going to cost me anything to object!” – with the clear rationale – “So why not?”
  
• A neighbour claiming that every bit of gardening required a permit;
  
• A neighbour saying that light from an extension window would spoil the view of the moon from his daughter’s telescope at night;
  
• A neighbour saying it would be over his dead body that an extension was built. Fortunately, he died;
• A neighbour saying paint on a timber extension would come off in strips and the flapping noise would keep her awake at night;
  
• Neighbours objecting to a new house on an empty block because it would ruin their shortcut to the beach;
  
• A neighbour objecting to an extension because a barbecue would be offensive since she was a vegetarian.
  Architect Daniel Meszaros has compiled the craziest complaints by neighbours to building projects as cartoons.

Every architect, council planning officer, lawyer, town planner, builder and neighbour has experience of these kind of crazy neighbour objections, says Meszaros.

“We say, ‘love thy neighbour’, but that’s only until, apparently, he puts in a plan for building work on his home …” he says.