Justify building application - 40m extension zone at the highway

By legal assistance I only meant that someone "from the field" reviews my writing once again. That can probably also be an architect, as you requested. The letter of course comes from me. I will not come directly with the lawyer around the corner.

By exterior plaster I meant the color or whether clinker bricks or the design of the facade in general.

I have also submitted construction drawings. However, these were still exemplary. We do not yet know what the house should look like in detail (discussions on this are ongoing in parallel).

No, I did not provide a justification for the 40m zone, because no one at the building authority could tell me in advance how this 40m zone is measured and where it begins. Especially with regard to the refugee shelters, I was told at the building authority: "we do have to consult the highway authority, but it will be fine, the refugee shelters are also approved."

The letter from Straßen.NRW was sent directly to us. The relevant passages are certainly:
"Since initial checks of the application documents have resulted in a rejection of your project, I would like to hear you and give you the opportunity to respond by xx.
[...] Your construction project is to be rejected: There is a significant violation of the 40m building prohibition zone.[...]
According to §9 para. 8 FStrG, an exception to the building prohibition may only be granted if a rejection in the individual case would lead to a hardship that apparently was not intended and the deviation is compatible with public interests [...]."

Yes, that's roughly how I imagined it too.

By legal help I only meant that someone "from the profession" checks my writing again.

Good. They will also know the vocabulary. I just think you'll need an architect anyway, hopefully not a lawyer.

"we do have to ask the highway authorities, but that will be fine, the refugee homes are also approved."

Well, a bit naive, I'd say. Your quotes from the letter suggest standard text modules. Maybe only a preliminary reviewer found the violation of the 40m and did not forward it to a decision-maker due to the missing justification. At least they give you the opportunity to make corrections and do not immediately write a rejecting statement for the building authority. If "those at the city" are well disposed towards you, they might even let you look into the justification for the refugee homes.

In any case, I see good chances for approval of a proper residential house, as long as you don't have too adventurous wishes that are completely incompatible with the surroundings. Except for the garage, but the neighbor can say something about that.

I suppose: 1. that Straßen.NRW is a state enterprise which is also supposed to give its input on administrative acts regarding the sections of federal roads within its district (and must manage this from the files) and 2. that they, in turn, have been asked by the municipality for their opinion.

They now want to kindly do this with a fair chance for the affected party to contribute their view of the situation. I consider the attitude of "not immediately bringing in a lawyer" – probably thinking that this would be seen as an escalation – to be wrong. Because, firstly, having a lawyer does not mean that one must then respond with the lawyer’s letterhead. And secondly, even if the response deadline of this state enterprise does not exclude later submissions, it will proceed as follows: if the state enterprise then does not have a statement from the affected party, it will respond to the municipality with the described rejection, and only then will the municipality communicate the rejection.

Unlike an architect, a lawyer will quickly and precisely read from the correspondence what legal consequences which actions have. And in my expectation, he will say: "inform them that you ask for patience in obtaining qualified formulation assistance" – because only then will the state enterprise wait; if by the date of resubmission no statement is yet available, it will reject. The reference to the source of the legal basis is a highly valuable service. And again, no one will know better than the specialist lawyer how to forge this iron most effectively, i.e. "bring to life" the wording with its individual facts.

What would be wrong now above all is: a) not to respond there just because the state enterprise does not give a final ruling; b) to press legally irrelevant emotional appeals there, such as that the land tax for building land would be unjust without building permission, or the like. From my point of view, your answer is almost spoonfed in the mentioned paragraph, but a lawyer should give you the push to read this correctly – that I or another of your forum buddies do this, in my opinion, is absolutely not a good idea considering the legal advice law. If you are financially reluctant to take this step, try googling "Beratungshilfe".

Hello everyone:
I think the special hardship applies in our case. My father-in-law rummaged through the old documents from 30 years ago and fortunately found the construction preliminary decision from back then.
The 40m extension zone is marked there and was at a different location than it is today. 30 years ago, the plot was completely "normally" buildable, but today, because the zone has been moved 3m further, it is no longer. It would be possible to build a house that is about 11m long to the north, about 3m to the south, and about 12m to the east (the diagonal then measures about 14m). In the end, this results in a rather "triangular" house.
I think you can’t get further here without consulting a lawyer. As several have already noted here, they know the correct terminology.
Many thanks in advance for the help here. I will report how it turned out.

Good luck! And as the saying goes, "In court as on the high seas"....

I hope your ship does not sink

Good luck! And as the saying goes, "in court it's like on the high seas".... I hope your ship doesn't sink

Well, at the moment we're rather talking about a paper boat. Because so far I haven't incurred any significant costs. But if you haven't at least tried, you'll regret it later.