Can the stone marking be removed?

[Newbee888 0]

Hi, just bought a IT and I found the stone wall unsightly and get into the way of a sliding auto gate I plan to replace the existing swinging type with.

I want to have it removed but was told by my ID that it could not be. It is for marking out the land boundary and elevation.  Is this true?

Also, the existing external wall currently I measured is at 1.8m from the street level. Am I not allowed to have it extended up to 1.8m from this raised stone wall level?

Looking forward to your advices.

[snoozee 98]

your ID is talking nonsense. the stone wall is part of your property and can be removed or plastered over or anything you wish to do with it AS LONG as you have the approval from the relevant authorities.

the existing wall does mark the boundary but do also note that the boundary might not be accurate depending on when the house was constructed. for example, my front boundary wall is actually encroaching into public land and when I do my rebuilt, I have to tear down the entire front wall and rebuilt it to be within my land boundary. so if you have a similar situation, you will have to shift the entire wall inside your land lot. Best is to engage a surveyor to do a site survey and get the actual land lot boundary of your house first.

for boundary wall, it is limited to 1.8m in height. so normally it will be taking the height from the street level. if you want to go higher than 1.8m, you can try to do a submission to URA to see if they can approve something beyond 1.8m. but chances is that the max they could give you is to measure from your car porch access level which might be another 20 or 30cm higher depending on how you can justify your request.

[Newbee888 0]

Thanks for your excellent feedback Snooze!

The building blue print shows my external wall is set back by 0.5m from the land boundary line.  This corresponds to the distance measured on-site from the foot of the sloping stone wall to the external wall. I can infer that the stone wall is the boundary line but I will still need a land surveyor to confirm and get relevant approval from the authorities before I can touch it?

My plan is to chip off the stone wall to flush with the external wall, first for security reason as it serves as a step to climb over the wall easily and secondly to install a sliding auto gate.

I am planning to do only renovation and some repairs and not A and A hence I had engaged the service of an ID who might not be familiar with the URA/BCA guidelines.

Edited May 12, 2018 by Newbee888

[snoozee 98]

it depends on how old is your building plan as some old plans are not that accurate due to the lack of technology in the old days to get an accurate bearing of all the points which mark out your land boundary. if you can spare the thousand odd dollars, I would say it is betteris get a surveyor to work out your actual boundaries first before you do anything.

you shouldn't need to do any submissions if you are not changing your entrance location as any entrance change will require LTA approval. the boundary wall itself is insignificant to require URA/BCA submissions.

[AWS 6]

I think it will be difficult to chip off a bit of the front of the stone wall because the individual stone pieces are relatively big and random in size. Removing the stones will loose your base support for the brick wall above and the brick wall may crack due to lack of base support. 

I think you will have to redo the whole wall after removing your stone wall plus brick wall.

Alternatively, remove the top brick wall, cement plaster the sloping stone wall vertical and join up with a new brick wall. This this case, you have not touch the original position of the stone wall and you have a better chance of getting away if the authories check on your work done

 

[Newbee888 0]

Belated thanks Snoozie and AWS!

Very helpful advices.  

I have decided to leave the stone wall alone but have it plastered up and painted to improve the visual slightly. Too much of a hassle and costs involved to hack it off or rebuild new walls and gate pillars.

[manofrenovation 0]

It seems to me that you should have just contacted the relevant authorities for a more detailed consultation. But if you have solved the situation yourself, I am sincerely happy for you!
Recently, I myself had a rather difficult situation. The stairs that led to the backyard broke down. I've never repaired stairs, so I didn't even know where to start and what material to use. Everything turned out only thanks to the Internet. I used an article about the construction of steps of stone https://trimthatweed.com/how-to-build-stone-steps/ . I am quite satisfied with the result.
It's good that nowadays you can find out everything online!