How to keep an eye on planning persmission?

Archeron

Howdy,
Can anyone recommend a good way to be able to keep an eye on planning applications here? The reason is, all the land behind my new house is zoned for development, and so far, most new development in the town is 3-4 story apartments. As my house is essentially in a hole (about 7 feet below the level of the road), an apartment complex pointing in a certain direction would remove all levels of privacy in all the houses on our estate. So I want to keep an eye on what is applied for to be built on land near my house and take a look at plans once they the applciations are made. Whats the best way to do this?
thanks

godtabh

Most county council have a planing section where you can go in and view the planning applications. A lot of them are on line as well so if you keep an eye on the online version and you spot them you can go in and view it

Lex Luthor

A site notice has to be posted near the road or footpath in clear view for any planning application and kept there for the duration of teh application which I think is 6 weeks.

paulocon

Think the above answers summed it up well.

Keep an eye in the planning sections of local newspapers. You are also well within your rights to walk into the county council offices and have a look at any applications.

If it is an major concern, I'm sure an email to the county council asking them to keep you in the loop wouldn't go amiss..

Sponge Bob

some allow online searches of planning applications and partial examination of docs but you then need to go into the office to check.

dont expect planning files to be kept up to date either , county councils often hide correspondance until after the decision so ask for written confirmation that the file is fully up to date OR how far behind they are at that time and is it complete at that moment if you suspect anything is hidden.

if they say they are 1 week behind filing BUT a document mysteriously takes 2 weeks to appear in the file then they lied and you can seek judicial review of that application (get it chucked back into planning from scratch )

never underestimate the enormous capacity of Irish so called 'planners' for pure corruption and failing that pure incompetence and lack of consideration for all the stakeholders in the planning process .

Archeron

Cheers one and all.

irlirishkev

Hi,

If you go to

http://www.dublincity.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/wphappcriteria.display

You can search for planning applications.

K.

Widgeon

I'm keeping an eye on the South County Dublin planning applications by looking up their web site www.sdcc.ie. They publish details of applications received, third party submissions etc.
Having looked at the applications over the past few years and comparing it with the work done to some houses, I see a lot of unauthorised development has taken place. Does the council ever check or does it wait for complaints to be made?

Sponge Bob

Widgeon wrote:

Does the council ever check or does it wait for complaints to be made?

Never, it must be brought to their attention.

paulocon

Can't see how the council could check for unauthorised developments, think they have a hard enough time keeping up to date with the authorised ones!!

I do know of a case locally where a guy built a rather elaborate extension at the back of his semi-d. Several of the neighbours complained which led to intervention by the council. He was ordered to take the extension down but the whole thing has been going through the courts for the last couple of years...

Sponge Bob

paulocon wrote:

Can't see how the council could check for unauthorised developments, think they have a hard enough time keeping up to date with the authorised ones!!

They use helicopters now and from next year the dept of the Environment will pay Google to maintain Google Earth for them ....from when they will use that as a spotting tool.

JimmySmith

People have all sorts of tricks to hide planning applications until they get approval.
One is to take the sign down as soon as they think its been checked.
All that happens when they are caught is that they have to re-apply.

Another is to advertise in a national paper rather than the local one. People are less likely to read planning apps in national papers.

Yet another is to apply using the irish version of the address.

Its very hard to keep an eye on planning. It really should be much much more transparent.

Victor

JimmySmith wrote:

Its very hard to keep an eye on planning. It really should be much much more transparent.

Hence the option to "Search by map" http://www.dublincity.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/wphappcriteria.display#

JimmySmith

Victor wrote:

Hence the option to "Search by map" http://www.dublincity.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/wphappcriteria.display#

Not everyone lives on that map though.
Would be a great if it covered the rest of Ireland.