Code department cracking down on decades-old garage conversions in South Austin

[verybadgnome]

I think it is always a good idea to do a permit search when buying an older house. Major work done without permits has a good chance of not being up to building codes, some important and some trivial.

https://abc.austintexas.gov/web/perm...c-search-other

[bpvarian]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

Went to take a look. Appears to be further down the road from where the NOVs were, but it would make for an annoying neighbor.

This is why I love my HOA

[Ivory Lee Spurlock]

I have relatives who live in Cherry Creek. In the 1st qrtr of 2019, a neighbor on their street sold their house that was built in the mid 1970's, approximately 1000 square feet and 1 car garage for $249,000. Somebody bought it and remodeled everything turned the garage into a living room to increase the living space to over 1300 square feet and remodeled and updated everything inside and turned around and sold it in September or October to a young couple for over $420,000. My relatives get calls and flyers on a near daily basis from realtors wanting to buy their house. They say their not selling until they are offered a half a million dollars.

[jackalope48]

On the permit question it's easy for the city to figure out. They have the permit records. A small remodel like a bath or kitchen would at worst only require a plumbing and/or electrical permit for moving those types of things around. If those aren't moved you wouldn't need a permit. (Mechanical too if you move the vent hood). Their evidence in such a case would be the original plans and how the current build differs.

So why did Austin bust 15 people? Crazy as it sounds they got one call on one property(probably a noisy tenant or airbnb). In responding to that complaint the code enforcement the officer surveyed for similar violations around the neighborhood. Why? The absolute most common defense from people with a violation is to drive around the neighborhood and find similar violations and then call and whine that "they didn't get tickets for the same thing". So the drive around was defensive in nature so the officer can say "ohh yes they did" when the original person calls about the warning letter.

Now the more serious question is whether this should be illegal in the first place. Parking requirements and bans on garage apartments are the two aspects of single family zoning most under fire these days. Garages for the additional cost they add to new structures driving up the cost of housing. Garage apartments are coming back into vogue for their ability to add cheap housing stock in inner citys and old suburbs with detached garages. A home owner can convert all or part of a garage and lease it out for $500-$1000 a month and come in way under apartments in the same area.

It's not clear from the article that the homeowner has actually done that. His predecessor may have just swapped the door to make it a shop space or man cave or she shed. That might not have been illegal at the time it was done. Most of that code is modern in dealing with the wind load issue on buildings and didn't exist 40-50 years ago. I'd also check to see if the code requires a garage actually have a door capable of fitting a car through it.