The designer/contractor I have been working with put the latest plans together, included the recommendations from the structural engineer, and submitted them again to the city. The garage ceiling was now at 10-feet, zero-inches (depending on where you measured it against the sloping floor), and we thought this would be the end of it; a building permit would surely follow.
But having met the prime objection, there were now further restrictions on the books that could be brought to bear on this project. I have a broad paved area in front of the garage where vehicles can be parked, when not actually inside. But the “curb cut” makes about a third of the area ineffective. It is hard to actually position and park a vehicle in that space. To alleviate the issue, we planned a widened driveway, to allow cars to pull up to the full width of the garage.
This triggered a rash of violations. Driveways (and the curb cut into them) may not be wider than a two-car garage, about 20 feet. Further, if we were doing any work on the driveway at all, it would need to be modified for a “grassy median strip” separating it from the alley. My disintegrating asphalt driveway had become the next obstacle to the project.
Rather than navigate these new restrictions on driveways, my builder wisely chose to simply exclude the driveway from the project. No changes to the driveway were included in the plan, so whatever its current state, code-compliant or not, legal or illegal, it would be accepted, since it was not in the plan under consideration.
Smart!