Planning Needed?

dillydally10

Hi,

looking for some advice on a project (hope I'm in the correct forum).

I have bought a small cottage c.1800's

I want to update the building (insulate, wiring, central heating etc..) and add a small extension to the rear. The house had a room added to the side at some stage (we suspect pre 1960) and no planning app exists for this room. The side room extension and the proposed extension to the rear do not exceed 40m2 in total.

We have been working on the basis that we do not require planning permission for this project as its renovation with a small ext.

Has anyone worked on a project like this and has it required planning or not?

As regards the roof - we are hoping to keep the roof as is, towards the front of the house at any rate. Ideally I'd like to take the roof off and replace it with one same height but am afraid then that this will require planning.

Interested to hear any views.

Thank you!

BryanF

dillydally10 wrote: »

Hi,

looking for some advice on a project (hope I'm in the correct forum).

I have bought a small cottage c.1800's

I want to update the building (insulate, wiring, central heating etc..) and add a small extension to the rear. The house had a room added to the side at some stage (we suspect pre 1960) and no planning app exists for this room. The side room extension and the proposed extension to the rear do not exceed 40m2 in total.

We have been working on the basis that we do not require planning permission for this project as its renovation with a small ext.

Has anyone worked on a project like this and has it required planning or not?

As regards the roof - we are hoping to keep the roof as is, towards the front of the house at any rate. Ideally I'd like to take the roof off and replace it with one same height but am afraid then that this will require planning.

Interested to hear any views.

Thank you!

once to the rear, not visible from the road and under the msq you should be fine.. but for piece of mind why not get an arch out for drive-by to double check. In the past I have vistied houses where i was told the extension planned was to the rear, only to find that due to the location of the house/ road/ boundary, that the 'rear' extension was visible from the road.. there-in causing a planning issue..
regarding the roof, once your reinstating the roof as is without increasing the height or changing the external materials, you should not require planning..

dillydally10

Thank you Bryan :-)

No6

Yes watch out for where the front is, its not where the front door is as according to normal people but is in fact the side facing the public road according to the planners leaving the back as being the side opposite to this. In practice and particularly with cottages this could mean the gable facing the road is the front for planning purposes which makes it really awkward for and extension to the rear.

DOCARCH

No6 wrote: »

Yes watch out for where the front is, its not where the front door is as according to normal people but is in fact the side facing the public road according to the planners.

This is not necessarily true either. The front of the house is essentially defined or determined as the elevlation/side that was intended originally to be the front (i.e. in most cases the side with the main halll and front door) and the rear then is the opposite side. Where this is in relation to the public road can actually be irellevant!

If you dig around there are a number of An Bord Pleanala referrals on this subject (i.e. how to define the front, rear and sides of a house) that go into length debating this issue.

I did an extension to a bungalow in Wexford where the (blank) gable wall of the bungalow faced the road and the front door was on the long side of the house (not facing the road but facing the side garden). We built a 40 m.sq. to the opposite side of the house, i.e. the rear, in full view of the public road and we recieved a Section 5 Declaration on exemption of same from the Council confirming that the extension had been built to the rear of the house.

As No6 says, be careful. If in doubt, apply for a Section 5 Declaration.

sydthebeat

out LA has a sort of unwritten rule that the front of the house is the side on which the front door is located. So in some cases where a house is 90deg to the road, an extension can be added without planning as its to the 'rear' notwithstanding the fact its visible from the road.

dillydally10

Thanks all for the input - it has given me some peace of mind.

As it happens the cottage is pretty conventional - front door faces the public road so the ext to the rear won't be seen from the road. The setting is rural so approaching along the road you can see the back of the house (side on view) accross the fields but I am assuming that is not an issue?

Good advice about the section 5. I'll look into that.

Now all I need is a small lotto win ;-)