Approval for Signboard

So what had happened ? Why so quiet one ? Lowyatt people now have no God like status to share their building experience online ? Hor ?

Well its been almost 6 months now with a lot of shit thats come to pass.

1. Christmas had passed (1 day)
2. New Years Day (1day)
3. Thaipusam (1 day)
4. Chinese New Year (2 days)
5. May 1st Labour Day (1 day)
6. The General Elections. This took up a almost 1 week because the Election Commission only has 775 staff under them. Guess where the other staff come from ? Yes, your local town council. (7 days)
7. 2 days holiday post General Elections (2days)
8. Wesak Day (1 day)
9...and now its just 3 days shy of Raya. Raya will be 2 days of holidays. Thats almost fucking 2 weeks wiped off the calender. (2 days)
10.  Raya Break of an additional 7 days for MBPJ staff (7 days)
11. In addition, we had to amend our plans, THREE TIMES. And that too added about another month to the plans. 



GRAND TOTAL NO. OF DAYS DUE TO HOLIDAYS SINCE SUBMISSION :

25 days excluding weekends




What a fucking year. And you think you live in good times.

So in total, its fair to say that its been 2 months gone off the calender, with 3 months of submitting things twice, with 3 amendedments to the list.

But we received fantastic news TODAY that we finally were approved to put up our signboard. But its going to be after Raya. Thats why Im writing this post TODAY. Even the wifey is Happy.

The paper work is done, fine, and approved for the bureaucratic rubbish soon to take place at the MBPJ's OSC (One Stop Centre). Things are now set in stone and the approval has been given by the boss in charge to go ahead.


So what had to be amended ?

AMENDMENT 1

Turns out that the first feedback received on the 14th of March to our town planner was as below :-

First Feedback. Shit thats a bit.

Keep in mind, there are 4 parties here to deal with back and forward

1. Me
2. MBPJ
3. Architect / Draftsman
4. Town Planner (which doesnt make fucking sense because I am not building a township)

Welcome to my world

AMENDMENT 2

The amendments were resubmitted only to be rejected again. Why ? Because as it turns out, IF you are a semi detached home linked at the side, you will have to comply with your neighbors roof. Received this news on the 22nd of May. Fucking Catch 22's.

I mean WTF ? Im going to have a Double storey building, why should the roof matter since I dont have roof on the ground floor with my neighbor ? My 1st floor will never be linked anyway !

Turns out that this was the letter received.

Fuck me

So as you can see folks, this was shitty news. I then looked at the houses on my street carefully and true and behold, all our neighbors on our side of the road had the same roof as what MBPJ had asked us to do. Funny thing, even our Architect said Im living in the twilight zone. A fucking crazy case that has no ending.

All our neighbors on the other side, had their roofs in an A frame facing the front.

Neighbour at the side has their roof facing forward

It took me about 4 days to meet with the MBPJ officer to come up with a simple solution that could have a win - win situation. I headed to the second floor of the MBPJ building where the "Perancang" division is. I finally meet the person in charge of SS3 in Petaling Jaya and before I could bring it up he says :



"I know what you are thinking. Use your car porch roof to match your neighbours side. But you would have to write an appeal letter, justifying your reason, and this could take a while without guarantees that it would get approved. The best thing you can do is comply with what is required. This will pull through guaranteed"




So what did we have to do ? I was fucking tired already.

You guessed it. Flip the roof. No longer will I have an A Frame roof from the front. It will be an A frame from the side. To "comply". Im still sore about being defeated not getting what I want. But then looking at all the houses and properties that I liked, they all had downward facing roof designs. That calmed me a little.

The moment I had left MBPJ that morning after being told to "comply" I took a drive around section 14 in PJ to view my favorite home of all time and some other homes. I realised that my favorite home has a forward pitched roof as well. Here are some other homes that I viewed as well that were alright with me.

My favorite

Nicely done in a Not Cheras Glamorous way

Always fancied this house too. And handsomely done. No hint of Cheras here.

To do this, This involved all parties - architect, mbpj, draftsman, 3d once again, all to go back to the board and fix this. And fix this quick we did. Within 2 weeks, we are now where we are. I was pissed, everyone sensed this. But it got done within a time frame that was deemed fair enough for me. Keep in mind these guys worked during Ramadhan for this. Given to someone like Mr. Eric or Eng Hoe and they would have taken their sweet time by keeping you in the dark, stupid and costly re submissions at their own mistakes.

AMENDMENT 3

On the 4th of June as the Drafstman submitted the plans back to MBPJ, and MBPJ throws us a final hiccup at the 11th hour.

The 3rd Amendment

MBPJ guideline says :

"The Maximum Roof Height from Ceiling Beam to Roof, is 9feet". 

We made ours 10feet to cater towards a 20 degree roof angle. Clarifying with MBPJ about the roof pitch if it was at 9feet we would have a roof pitch of only about 18 degrees, MBPJ says


"Doesnt Matter". 

"Huh ?" I believe was my response

You mean theres no concern for rain water coming through the roof tiles if the wind and rain blows at a steep angle ? Ok.

This is why it was silly with MBPJ. You can have shingles, or a corrugated roof etc for low angles but MBPJ doesnt care about the degree ? Ok, whatever.

Took 2 days to redraw the roof height but wasnt a super big issue. So thats 3 amendment later.

However in all fairness, the original images that we submitted of our neighbor didnt show the type of roof they had clearly. FUCK ME.  On one hand if they were not so attentive, I could have got what I wanted. You would think that MBPJ would have seen this so obviously from the start. but on the second review this is where the curve ball had taken place at the 11th hour.

Couldnt tell the type of roof neighbour had, neither did we know for a semi detached, you have to follow the same roof design. Even when the building on the first floor is not linked. Mr. Eric would have said it can be approved.



Clean white and bright. Well, here's the new roof approved. A stone wall on the facade of the first floor would add back some 70s charm. Nice grey stones interlocked in various shapes and sizes. Yes, I amended the image a little. Took away some of that Cheras look in the 3d rendering

I hope that this long streak of bad luck, and fucking holidays will now have no affect to my plans, timeline and moving forward. Its finally on the brink of moving forward. Nothing is in My own hands, architects, draftsman etc. Its now just MBPJ from here on out.

If you are like me, the happiest thing for me in this entire submission, is actually looking forward to that piece of signboard being put up. That itself would be a physical testament to getting things approved. Fucking triumph of looking back at weekly calls, submissions, architect amendments, soil testing, survey, bla bla bla and all else that has come to past.

I even cut the grass recently in anticipation of the home looking good when the signboard goes up.

Man I want one of these

All in all, Im still glad that we didnt get a third party architect who didnt know what they would be doing, continuously charging you for their own mistakes for submission. I have access myself to MBPJ who are advising me, but fuck me it took a while.

In conclusion, if you have a semi detached house that you are rebuilding, note the following :

1. Ceiling Beam to Roof Top maximum is 9feet.

2. You will have to follow your neighbours roof design if your semi detached is linked to the side. If it is linked at the back, you dont have to worry.

3. Beware of the fucking holidays

4. Pictures of your neighbours roof need to be clear

I will look forward to coming back here, posting my next blog when FINALLY after 6 months, the neighbours would have finally gotten their letter from MBPJ stating we have plans to demolish and rebuild, together with an image of our signboard.

For the meantime, wishing all and you hardworking lowyatt folks,

Less Ede Mubarak, more Selamat Hari Raya
Less Ramadhan Kareem, more Selamat Berpuasa
Less Iftar, more Buka Puasa

After all, we are Malaysians, not Arabs

Selamat Hari Raya and stay tuned.