Setback discussion with the architect

The main reason for the "not approved" from planning is our setbacks on the sides of the house. The building codes had once again changed such that for our lot, we need 6' of clearance on each side. The old code was that you needed a total of 12' clearance on the sides. So we met up with our architect to discuss which rooms to narrow down to meet that setback requirement. We decided not to try to appeal the decision since it would most likely be rejected anyway and just end up wasting a lot of time and money.

She was very upset because she had met with the planning office twice during our design process and there were no comments on the setbacks.

So annoying!
But thankfully, she came up with a good design to minimize the damage of narrowing the house.