Planning issues - post them here MOD WARNING post #1

Hi,

My planning permission was Refused. The two reason given were as follows:

1. The site is located in a rural area outside designated settlement...etc.
On the basis of the documentation submitted it is considered that the applicant does not come within scope of the criteria for rural residential development in this location.

They also mention that the development would lead to a demand in public services.

(I presume they mean local needs)

Can I fight them on this? My fathers family all grew up here, I lived here as a child and my partner lives 10km away. I never thought local needs would ever be a problem.

2. The development by virtue of its mass, span, for and general design would cause harm to the character and appearance of the countryside.

(This is not a problem as i am willing to make changes to the design if necessary)

Do i have any chance on winning this battle?

sydthebeat wrote: »

Yep

It sounds like you didn't supply enough evidence to prove your local need.
Did your agent advise you on what to submit? Some councils have very stringent requirements for what they consider 'evidence'

Yes, i had two architects working on it with me.

I included everything, dating back to 1956.

totally baffled.

miller_63 wrote: »

How big is the house and how much of the rural development guide did you follow?

The house was approx 2000sqft.

To be honest, I know nothing about the rural development guide, i presumed the architects would know what criteria to follow.

The site is very remote and away from the main road, approx. 10 houses in the area most of which are 1950's bungalows, some dormers and 2 story and half properties.

We planned on building a story and a half sized property, but we were not opposed to change the design to a dormer/bungalow if needed.

sydthebeat wrote: »

did you include:

• OS maps showing distances from 'birth home' to proposed site
• land registry folio and map showing ownership of 'birth home'
• OS map marking locations of all family in the area
• Letters from local schools (primary + secondary) showing years attended by you and your partner
• Letters from local groups you have/had involvement with (sports, community etc)
• Letter from local parish priest / curate vouching for familys ties to the area
• Birth cert (long version) showing mothers address at time of birth for both
• If working locally, letters from work outlining time spend working and type of work carried out.
• Any other proof of how long you have spent living in the area

may i ask what county?

I included:

OS maps of my fathers birth home, i did not specify this was my birth home, but i did state i did live in the home as a child.


I attended school in the nearest town which is 10/15Km away my architect advised on not including this in the application.

land registry folio and map showing ownership (the land belongs to my father) he signed a letter stating i could use the land.

I included a letter from a priest stating i was part of the parish.

My Mother is from the nearest town (mullingar) i did not include her birth cert. Was this necessary?

I included letters from work stating all employment details.

I don't have any more ties to the area.

My partner is a memeber of local clubs but i was advised not to include him as he lives in the next village.

The county in which the permission was applied for is Westmeath.

Hi,

As far as I know you would have had to request an extension to the planning. You can download the cork co co app to your phone (its available on Appstore and you can see this on the planning website) and search by name or address or planning ref number they would have given you on todays letter 14/XXXXX and then look under documents and you will see who has requested this extension.

Let me know how you get on out of curiosity!

Thanks

Ya, you should have had to actually apple for extension to the planning. You should be able to drill down in the app and see the letters that accompanied the request for extension.

As far as I know, planning can't be transferred from one person to another. Even though your name has the planning, whoever buys it will have to apply again. Thats my understanding of it, but could be wrong!!

missmoon99 wrote: »

Sorry, what I meant is that, ya, I think your name would have been signed to something requesting an extension. But you should be able to see whats been submitted online, its another application basically and you and your husband would have had to sign it.

Hi missmoon,
I got the application form eventually, and indeed you are right our signatures were needed and were forged . Im a bit cross actually, the cheek of some people! I dont know what to do from here...
thanks for your help.

Hi,
we own a farm which borders the road on a country road in Co. Monaghan. Our land is on both sides of our entry to the road, and there is a bit of a turn on the road. There is a grade on our lane, and the land on both sides is banked. Almost opposite, there is a lane which is council owned. Someone is applying for planning permission about half a mile in the lane. There are already 2 houses using this lane. We have been asked if we would remove the bank on one side of our lane to improve the sight distances for their planning permission. My question is: is this necessary when they are dealing with a council owned lane, and an existing entry onto a road? We don't want to do it as it would mess up the grading on our lane, water meter, various poles etc amongst other reasons, but I wondered if it was even necessary?

A couple of fairly general queries that others may have come across already (they may even have been answered in this thread somewhere already!). We are thinking of adding a sort of glorified shed onto an existing rural property (not attached to the house). Having read through the regulations there are a couple of areas I'm not clear on.

1. Where does planning usually draw the line regarding "human habitation"? The basic idea is to have a building of approximately 25 sqm, the front half of which would have patio doors, conservatory style windows etc, the back half being purely storage, with few or no windows, and access directly from the front half. It would be wired for power, but not water or sanitation. At that point the front part would have several potential uses, from using it as a greenhouse, to moving the running machine into it, to using it as a quiet place to go with the computer when telecommuting. Or would the very fact of setting it up like a conservatory automatically push it into "habitable"?

2. If its considered to be habitable and needing planning permission, does it still come under the 25sqm limit for sheds etc, or the 40sqm for extensions (bearing in mind its not actually attached to the house). If the latter, the house had a 25sqm sunroom added during construction, so it did not form part of the original planning, but was completed before the house was ever lived in. Would that then form part of the 40sqm limit? :(I'm assuming yes as the phraseology is:
"2. (a) Where the house has been extended previously, the floor area of any such extension, taken together with the floor area of any previous extension or extensions constructed or erected after 1 October 1964, including those for which planning permission has been obtained, shall not exceed 40 square metres."
but I'm kind of hoping that it doesn't count as it was effectively part of the original build!).


As far as I can see, no other restriction (boundary distances, minimum open space, oversight etc) would cause any issues. Any thoughts gladly accepted!

Hi (hope I'm posting in the correct thread!!)

I'm currently in the horrible process of buying and selling a house. The surveyor arrived a number of weeks ago and started to question a wall and its supports. He also questioned a flat roof extension and if it has ever leaked. Now the wall in question is not a load bearing wall but has the ample supports and the flat roof extension has never leaked. He claimed that he could see the roof leaking either next year or the year after (I must mention that this surveyor did not seem like a qualified surveyor). Anyway the buyers came back next week looking for 2k to be knocked off the price (we replied no) they then wanted 1k knocked off the price (we still said no as the house has been gutted and finished to a high standard).

Now out of the blue a query has arisen about the front driveway which we opened up from a 1 car entrance to and entrance which fits 2 cars. Basically we knocked the wall down and paved the driveway. The query is about certification of this work. We did not apply for planning permission for this work and are now in a horrible position of the possibility of losing the house we are purchasing (as they want a quick sale).

I suppose I just wanted to post this up because boards is often a great way of getting advice. I've queried a retention application which involves a minimum waiting time of 3 months which is not an option if we want the sale to go through. We've since got onto the agent and asked him to offer the buyer a reduction in price to cover the cost of retention or building a wall back up.

My other option is to build the wall back up but I guess that's where my query lies - can I go head and build the wall back to its original position and if I do so will I still have to get an architect to certify the wall construction?

Just wanted to bounce this off people to see what they think.

No, house is on a main road.

Just a general query about a planning application in DLRCOCO please.

Do you know if observations are uploaded to their website as they are made? Can I assume if the application online has no observations then nothing has been submitted?

Also, does it always take the full 3 weeks after the 5 weeks observation date before the decision is made?

Thanks

Hi again,

A number of observations have been lodged against our planning application, I'm sick to the stomach. How much importance is usually placed on these submissions? Assuming we have all the DLRCOCO planning restrictions covered (i.e. size of open space, distance to other properties, parking requirements etc) do they pay heed to comments such as "it will devalue our property", "the windows overlook a public green area" etc? Our architect doesn't seem overly concerned, but I'd be gutted if this didn't go through. If anyone would like to take a look and give me your opinion based on your experience, I could PM you the planning ref.

Edit: Who is usually informed of the final decision? Is it us, or the architect who submitted the application? Or does the decision just go up online?

Much appreciated
Thanks