Our back neighbour plans to build on the site. Ive met a couple of times. He popped in to mention this as there is a non compliance on the design, so he asked for feedback so I have the plans that his designer sent to the Council. Two two storey townhouses, one back, one front, the back one will back onto the back of outrproperty. There are 3 items of non compliance, one for our property on the east side and two on the south neighbours side. Our one is where the roof intrudes on the recession plane by 1.4m at worst and 0.75m at the lowest point. To comply they would need to move the home back by 2.5m, and a small list of problems that would cause. The designers say "the loss of sun for us will be only to garden areas and most affected in the afternoon when the sun is setting". The other two for the other neighbours are the south side gable where the "sun loss is minimal". They also say for the other neighbour that the max width of an intruding gable is 7.5m but the two gables (its two townhouses) are both 9.8, and another list of issues that will cause to the design, making the garage and master bedroom and ensuite not fit in

TBH I find this a bit annoying as the designer has sent in plans for consent, even though they don't comply, and the language of "it will compromise our design and the owners, so please let us have this"

My queries are:

1. Can the council (ChCh) decide that they can be non compliant to the recession planes and just give consent. Surely not, recession planes are there for a reason. 

2. Or will the Council say no dice unless you can get consent from the neighbours? 

Assessing the sun, and where the building's sun facing wall will be, its probably not that big a deal. But I would prefer it was compliant to the recession planes, then I have no issue. Nor will anyone else when they sell/buy properties that have a non compliant neighbouring home

Cheers!