Knee wall and number of floors - Knee wall height?

Exactly this problem is/was faced by everyone in our new development area. The knee wall height of 40cm was accidentally included (the politician was asleep) and no exceptions could be made anymore because the first ones were built with teeth-gritting (either everyone gets this exception or no one does). They allowed all kinds of tricks to artificially raise the knee wall, as it was actually not intended. Two floors were also allowed, which is why we opted for the townhouse. There is also the option with 2 full floors and a flat roof, but that probably wouldn’t be really cheaper either. Theoretically, you can build an additional floor on the 2-story townhouse with a 0.5 meter knee wall as an attic. It then becomes a pretty luxurious attic, or later converted almost a full floor (if converted immediately, it might cause problems with the floor area ratio because the later conversion is never reported cough cough). In your case, the bungalow might be an option otherwise. The frequently popular 1.5-story house with a gable roof and a high knee wall is definitely not possible. Of course, there is still the trick with the large dormer, but in terms of price it will end up close to the townhouse in the end. The Tuscan style would also be possible, but is certainly less attractive in terms of price (because ornate and convoluted). PS: Ceiling height in the upper floor is great if you really actively use the rooms (e.g., children’s rooms). It is quite a noticeable difference compared to a 0.4 meter knee wall at the neighbor’s with the same room size.

Hello,

We are only allowed to build:
......

Understandable. Does the development plan mention anything about excluding a setback floor? If not, that would be an alternative.

Now we have to try the route via exemption, but we were told there would be little success since the construction area (a gap in the existing development from 1973) was implemented very restrictively.

In my opinion, that only works if such exceptions already exist in direct proximity to your building project, otherwise you can save yourself the effort.

It's not as if I wouldn't take a city villa. But we first have to digest the additional costs of probably 20,000€ (+ EL on the new walls) and see if that's financially even possible.

Why don't you have it calculated once, if you adjust the dimensions in 50 cm increments?

Rhenish regards

well a city villa definitely has considerably more bricks than a 1.5 story gable roof house. it also has significantly more stones/wall area, but the roof area is not much smaller (hardly fewer roof tiles), but with a hip roof it is "more complicated" than with a gable roof without a clipped gable roof and the city villa requires the expensive special tiles (corner pieces). a city villa normally has more windows on the upper floor due to possibilities (we have 8 upstairs, 2x even floor-to-ceiling) than a gable roof house (often 4 windows +0-2 roof windows).

cost advantages of city villa:
- smaller foundation slab, thus less area for soil exchange
- smaller floor slab

in our comparisons, a city villa actually always cost about €20,000 more than the 1.5 story gable roof house. but if you bring the knee wall to a reasonable height, the price difference might be "only" €10,000-15,000. maybe you should look at whether you can save money somewhere else. you can initially save a lot of money on the kitchen and wall materials (simple kitchen with Ikea parts that you install yourself + walls only painted and no wallpaper = quickly saved €10,000), without sacrificing things that you can’t retrofit later. then in 4-5 years, once the house is properly dried out, just renovate room by room (costs are then manageable for one room). rooms that are hard to access later (e.g. kitchen) do it right the first time. there are other options too, depending on how you budget. if you have already budgeted super tightly everywhere just so you can manage it at all, it won’t work out. we also started with "definitely no more than €200,000 loan," but after a few months of looking we ended up at €270,000. since signing, we have scraped together another €15,000 besides our already planned equity in one year (+ received €10,000 gifted from my father), and still the money is gone and the outdoor area is a wasteland.