As part of a recent renovation project, we added a second floor to an existing one-story attached garage. The plan was for a new bedroom suite in this added space to tie into a two-story addition that we would build in conjunction with the garage work. Simply demolishing the garage and starting from scratch would have made more sense but wasn't an option: Since the garage sidewall was in violation of the local zoning ordinance's side-yard setback requirement, taking it down would mean losing 5 feet of variance. So, to conform to the ordinance, the new second-floor sidewall needed to be built 5 feet further in from the property line than the existing garage sidewall.

To build the second floor and prepare the garage for the tie-in, we would have to demo the roof, demo the sidewall gable, jackhammer the slab, and lengthen the back of the garage by 2 feet.

or Register to continue reading