There are always creative ways to look at to achieve planning, not all obvious at first glance. However who comes up with the idea? Your Planner, the Architect, Contractor?
Invariably it needs a central point to take the developer view and the info from all of these to come to the solution. This was a clever way to overcome what you want and still work within the rules.
Here a Banker from Credit Suisse ocercome the loss of homes by simply creating them to get the luxury flat he wanted.