Building application for a different roof pitch

Hello everyone

My wife and I have bought a plot of land and are in the process of obtaining a building permit according to our ideas. There is no development plan. The only thing that exists is a statute that regulates roof pitch and roof shape. Our plans deviate from the statute in terms of roof pitch. The statute requires a roof pitch (gable roof) of 50°-55°. Our ideas deviate to 38°.
The neighboring house (same building zone) also has a roof pitch of 38° and was built before the 2012 statute.
The statute states:
"In the case of exceptions, different roof pitches and roof shapes are permissible for building extensions and already deviating roof structures."

As a layperson, I understand: if there is already a house with a roof pitch of 38° in the building zone, then this is also permissible, right?

Thanks in advance

Hello,

sorry, but I cannot share your assessment.

I would interpret the statute in such a way that different roof pitches or roof shapes are only permissible when an extension is added to an existing house that already has a roof pitch deviating from the statute.

My recommendation in this case would be to contact the responsible building authority directly and lay out your wishes in a personal meeting and ask for an assessment of the approval feasibility. We have had very good experiences with this approach at our building authority – our building plot is located in an existing residential area without a development plan, so §34 Baugesetzbuch applied there.

If the building authority is not willing to engage in such a preliminary discussion, you still have the option of a building inquiry to clarify whether your proposal is approvable – this path is still cheaper than risking a rejection of the entire plan.

Best regards,

Dirk

Thank you Dirk for the quick response I think your assessment is unfortunately correct, I will inquire with the building authority in the worst case, it will be a house with a roof pitch of 50°

Hello,

in our case, the building authority really worked very constructively with us.

We were allowed to rotate the ridge by 90°, significantly raise the knee wall, and implement very individual solutions overall.

Just ask what possibilities the employee of the building authority sees - if the neighboring house also has a roof pitch of 38°, the chance that you might also be allowed to build like this should not be entirely impossible.

I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you!

Regards,

Dirk

We were allowed to rotate the ridge beam by 90°, significantly raise the knee wall, and also implement very individual solutions in other respects.

Was the height of the knee wall explicitly specified? Did the increase result in a different number of floors?

Thank you and regards

Hello,

no, there were hardly any regulations because there was no development plan for the area - the existing houses mostly date from 1950 - 1955.

However, the "old" house (we demolished it) had a knee wall of about 60 cm, just like the other old houses around it.

But since there are already newer houses in the street with higher knee walls, we could also orient ourselves to these buildings.

Despite the higher knee wall, our house still counts as a 1.5-story building.

Regards,

Dirk