**Short Background**

In another post [name something that is illegal but shouldn’t be](https://www.reddit.com/r/Switzerland/comments/skk3v4/name_something_that_is_illegal_in_switzerland_but/) I tried to defend a few Things regarding Building laws. I work as a “Bauverwalter” in a City in Kanton Aargau. Building Laws are different from Kanton to Kanton but there are some Federal Laws that Apply everywhere. And at last the Commune can also have small different laws (like Building heights or lengths). That said, I only work in the Zones where you can build. Buildings that are not in the “Bauzone” are regarded completely different.

[**Story 1: The Fight about the noise Roosters make**](https://zueriost.ch/news/2019-07-08/trotz-84-dezibel-lautstaerke-gueggel-gewinnt-vor-gericht)This happened in Kanton Zürich not long ago. The Debate was about a Rooster that was so loud that you could measure 84 dB with 15 Meter distance! This led to a court case wich was decided in the favour of the Rooster. The Court said it is important to differentiate between having animals as a hobby or not. In this case, the owners clearly had animals as a hobby (like Rabbits, Cats or Dogs) and thus having them was not forbidden at all. But this led to a practice that would be widely used by other Communes. If you have more than one Rooster in a Building Zone you need to give all Roosters away except for one! This also Happened in Rothrist to a Lady and my Team has a similar Case in our City. So only one Rooster and a few Chickens are allowed for keeping them as a hobby.

[**Story 2: The need of a Permit for a snow pile**](https://www.bger.ch/ext/eurospider/live/de/php/aza/http/index.php?highlight_docid=aza%3A%2F%2F15-05-2018-1C_505-2017&lang=de&type=show_document&zoom=YES&)This story happened in Kanton Schwyz where the Commune Willerzell used a parcel to place snow from the Streets so Cars move again. The Neighbour of that parcel thought, this Pile of Snow was so big that it needed a Building Permit. He went to court for multiple instances but he lost every time. His argument was, that the snow pile would be there for more than 3 months and thus it’s not a temporary building. It’s also close to a small creek and the snow melting would be dangerous for the creek, as the snow had dirt from the road in it. The Federal court said that natural events like this don’t need a building permit. But the Commune needs to control the melting process and the Substances that could get into the small creek. So if you have a difficult neighbour, no a snow pile doesn’t require a building permit!

[**Explained: Distance from your Building to the End of the Parcel**](https://www.ag.ch/de/bvu/bauen/baubewilligungen/bewilligungsablauf/bauen_innerhalb_der_bauzone/abstaende_und_ausnahmebewilligungen_1.jsp)This is surely something where I got asked a lot why there needs to be at least 4 Meters distance from the Start of your Parcel to your house (6 Meters if it’s a Kantonsstrasse). This is something where every Kanton has different Laws but they are more or less the same. These Distances are a Result of Planning over many years. Roads tend to get wider and it’s not uncommon that People need to give up a small part of their parcel for that. It could be because the road needs a walkway, an additional bicycle lane or just needs to be broader in general. That’s why these Distances are so important, because you can’t really build a road through a building and breaking a part of a building down for a broader road isn’t something the taxpayer wants to pay.

**On a SidenoteWe are a Building Permit office. We WANT to Permit Buildings, not forbid them!** But there are certain things you need to keep in mind. There are rules and laws and we make sure those rules and laws are applied. Your Building doesn’t just affect you, it affects the people around it too. For Example the flame could affect buildings nearby or if you have insufficient Fire Protection and your Building burns down, everyone that owns a building pays a bit too. Because all Buildings here are insured by the AGV. All pay into the same pot!As I said, we permit if you obey the rules! But there’s something else. We work for the commune and that means, we can only forbid something or make special rules if it’s written in the law! If you are suspicious about something then always ask the office “Where is this written? Wich law, wich article?”.

I have encountered a few people that were making laws up and they even believed they existed! When I asked them where is this written they tried to search for the article but never found it because it didn’t exist! I want to prevent this because we are paid by the taxpayers and our job is to permit buildings! But as I said, we can only permit if the buildings are compliant with the laws!

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Edit: Changed the word Cock to Rooster for cleaner language. I totally forgot about this^^”

12 comments

  3. > There are rules and laws and we make sure those rules and laws are applied. Your Building doesn’t just affect you, it affects the people around it too

    From all the shit I hear from friends and family (the city architect deeming a window “too large”) and other absurd things (CHF 1’000 fee to “add the building in the 3D model of the city”), I concluded that I neither have the stomach, nor the will (nor the money) to go through the process of building a house in Switzerland.

  4. Wow extremely interesting, thanks for sharing!

    One question: Do you know why balconies are so rare in Switzerland? Most building i see in Zurich, Zig, Luzern either have no balcony or s really useless small one.

  5. I once had to assist a client who wanted to build a small shack for his goats. We had to fight in court against the neighbor who argued that 10 goats are not a hobby anymore and thus is not compatible with the “living zone” but only with the agricultural zone. One of my favorite case, the jurisdiction is surprisingly rich to this regard.

  6. Great read. I am currently in the process of submitting a permit and it‘s a pain in the ass 😂 I basically want to convert the old oil tank room to a room to work. Need a window etc. It seems to me that it was easier to get the permit to completely empty and rebuild the whole ground floor than getting a 5m2 room converted. One does not have to understand everything I guess 🤷‍♂️

  7. A question somewhat related to building: We have a private street that goes over a neighbor’s property (Durchfahrtsrecht). These neighbors fought hard to keep us from building the street, even though the access is entered into the property register, and is the only way to get to our property.

    When we clear snow off the road, it goes onto their property (because where else could it go?). Being the lovely people that they are, once they live here, I fully expect them to tell us that we are not allowed to clear snow from the road onto their property.

    So my question: Are there actually rules about this? Where are you allowed to put snow that you remove from a road?

  8. Thanks for the interesting insights. I do believe that building permits make good sense. In recent years we saw some communes putting the ugliest eye-sore cubes up just to make fast profit.

    And we saw communes making sure these have at least proper roofs and features and colours to fit within the broader aesthetic of the village. Not only to keep their visual integrity, also to sell them easier and with less resistance from the citizens towards the future owners.

    As it appears there is not much tolerance. If we get it wrong, the environment and life quality can be spoiled for 80 years or more. A very long time. From that perspective, maintaining supportive building standards benefit everyone over a long period of time. Not only the owner, who is too greedy to put a proper roof on top.

  9. Hi there! Thanks for the interesting examples and answers to questions!

    I have one, if you don’t mind: I’d love to build a (big, but not large) greenhouse _outside_ the building zone. If I read correctly, that’s more or less not OK. What would be OK, is a “mobile” polytunnel. Works for me too, just worse and way uglier. What rules do apply? Is there a way to build a nice good looking greenhouse?

  10. Fantastic stories .. though I do feel that offsets for the sake of *road expansion* is a really poor idea. We really don’t need more thruways for automobiles, especially not where *most* buildings are built, and it prevents a lot of design choices that would lead to nicer and more human(e)-scale development.

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