Possible to ask utility (power, telco, street light) to shift away from front of house?

[Kentish 0]

I am interested to purchase an old terrace house that does not have a big door. So I want to install a gate wide for car to go in but there is two big metal boxes (about 1.2m tall and 1m wide) that looks like they house telco and power switches. There is also a street lamp post right in the middle.

Do any of you have experience on whether I can request to have these moved? I want to clarify this before I make decision to buy the house.

Thank you.

[snoozee 98]

How wide you want the opening to be?

the OG boxes belong to SP power grid. Better call or e-mail them with the address of the property to verify on whether can move or not. If they say can move, you may need to pay for the relocation of the boxes

street lamp belongs to LTA so you need to check with them 

Edited March 1, 2020 by snoozee

[petetherock 13]

Any photos? 

I cant imagine a street lamp blocking your gate ..

[snoozee 98]

A inter-terrace house is normally 6m wide. So the 2 OG boxes and lamp post would most probably take up 3m of space. This would still leave 3m of space for the opening for the gate. 

Maybe TS wants the opening for the entire width of the house( which is not allowed) or on the side where the boxes are located( which might not be approved if the opening don’t match the neighboring house). I don’t think SP and LTA is silly enough to install the infrastructure smack in the middle of a potential house access opening. 
 

but then I may be wrong about the authorities. Cos previously I saw a undeveloped piece of land which can be built into a inter terrace. But in front of the land is a bus stop. Not sure if the bus stop got shifted now that someone bought the land and is building a house

Edited March 1, 2020 by snoozee

[petetherock 13]

That's why I can't think of a legal way to move the lamp nor a good reason to... I know some lanes are very narrow, and cars have trouble turning into their own homes, so they 'makan' into the kerb, by cutting it off, but if there's a lamp post or some other object there, they can't.. but these are not legal ways to resolve it either.

So when you buy a home, choose it after you observe how many cars are there at night and is it easy to get into your own home.

[snoozee 98]

Moving infrastructure is usually done by requests to the relevant authorities. It can be done but just takes time and maybe some money involved. 
 

for newly developed houses, if there are changes to the road opening/access, the newly installed kerbs, etc all have to follow LTA’s guidelines 

[Kentish 0]

Thank you for the inputs.

The front of the inter-terrace house is estimated to be the standard 6m wide. The current door is just a regular door 1m width on the concrete wall fence. There is no drainage between the fence and road, which is a wide 2 lanes straight road. Most of the neighbours including the immediate neighbours have all rebuilt their house to 3-stories with fence and car gate. So I interpret as possible to rebuild and open a car gate provided that house has nothing blocking in front like the rest of houses.

The 2 boxes, each about 1m width has another about 0.6m gap between them. And then there is the lamp post and the gap to the boxes. That leaves only about 2m from the edge, which is insufficient for a gate for car.

It seems as though that the boxes and lamp post are all concentrated to the front of this house when the other houses rebuilt. The boxes look new.

Edited March 2, 2020 by Kentish
to give more details to the question

[snoozee 98]

as mentioned, only SP and LTA can make the decision on whether the OG boxes and lamp post can or cannot be shifted. But since you are not the owner of the house, whether they would entertain your question is something else.

For new gate openings, there are rules to be followed and the basic rule is that your new opening must be immediately adjacent to your neighbours. eg: if your neighbour on your left has the opening on his right most side of his house, then your opening must be on the left side of your house which matches his. this means your right side would be a wall which matches another wall for the neighbour on your right. with this said, the relocation of the boxes and lamp post can only be to the side where there isn't a gate opening but a boundary wall for the house. so it could be possible that only 1 OG box and the lamp post needs to be shifted.

so question now is whether you want to take the risk and buy the house without knowing if the infrastructure can be shifted or not. I would say just email SP and LTA with the house address and see if anyone replies to you. then from there decide whether to buy the house or not.

[petetherock 13]

+1

Some houses don't come with gates or a car entrance... you will need to talk to the authorities on whether you can do that... 

[CoralHC 0]

Lamp post check with LTA. $30k for about 3m away but this rate was in year 2017.

[snoozee 98]

9 minutes ago, CoralHC said:

Lamp post check with LTA. $30k for about 3m away but this rate was in year 2017.

were you the owner of the house at the point of asking?

[CoralHC 0]

Nope, was one of my friend house. I wouldn't spend that money to shift the lamp post. ?

[snoozee 98]

19 minutes ago, CoralHC said:

Nope, was one of my friend house. I wouldn't spend that money to shift the lamp post. ?

so did your friend pay for the shift?

For my house, we had to shift an incoming cable (running through my property) which is currently shared between my neighbour and my house and SP verbally mentioned there would be a cost to it. later on they did the shift for me FOC.

[petetherock 13]

Just as a reference 

Shifting or changing the main power cable into a landed home will cost upward of $5000.. I had to redo mine..

[snoozee 98]

14 minutes ago, petetherock said:

Just as a reference 

Shifting or changing the main power cable into a landed home will cost upward of $5000.. I had to redo mine..

if you applying for new 60A or 100A 3 phase supply, then not considered as shifting. it is a new service application. new application for 60A (41KVA) supply is $5300 before GST. 100A (69KVA) is $8800 before GST. but for 100A supply, need to have LEW perform inspection yearly.

I had to pay the 5K+ for the application for a new 3 phase supply as well as the original supply is just a single phase supply