one off housing in countryside

duffysfarm

does anyone else think that one off housing in the countryside is ruining the countryside? i live in a small village and i while there wasnt too many houses built in the last 10 years in the area i can start to see a lot of planning applications in and house building starting in the area. I think it is making a mess of fields and soon enough the only way to get into a field will be down a lane between houses. a lot of the people that are building these houses too are from housing estates in the towns surrounding. I dont for one second blame the farmer for selling sites as in some cases its the only way they can make a few pound. I also dont blame the people for wanting to live in the country side, i just dont think its been managed properly. I do blame the county councils for this as i think there shoudl eb more land made available in towns and villages for housing estates to keep housing together and make the best of scarce resources.

Mooooo

Not in cork anyway, unless you're from the area you wont get planning. Even if an old house is bought there is a 7 year wait b4 it can be changed I think. Local needs clause. I have no issue if old houses which are dilapidated are bought and knocked and rebuilt., but people can't even do that now.

adamhughes

yes prefer to see the older houses already there fixed up ...

was there not a grant coming in to renovate old houses in the country to get people to stay in the country.
I though one of the Healy-Rae's was going to push this through, it was one of his policies so I thought or was it just all talk?

Angus2018

Where is that? It's near impossible to build a house even on your own land these days. Not a chance if you bought a plot.

Cantona's Collars

Angus2018 wrote: »

Where is that? It's near impossible to build a house even on your own land these days. Not a chance if you bought a plot.

Come on down to Wexford, planning notices stuck in ditches on virtually every stretch of road.

Turnipman

Cantona's Collars wrote: »

Come on down to Wexford, planning notices stuck in ditches on virtually every stretch of road.

But Planning Applications are one thing - grants of planning permission are quite another!

It's possible that land owners are trying to get PP for various sites in the hope that one or two will get the green light. Or are you saying that WCC are granting most of the applications?

anthony500_1

Angus2018 wrote:

Where is that? It's near impossible to build a house even on your own land these days. Not a chance if you bought a plot.

Same in west Galway. Took me the guts of 4yrs to get planning on my family land that's in the family since 1887. Only one other house on farm and it was not left to me. So I was farming land and living off farm. Not ideal.

I understand that ppl have to live somewhere but with no houses/estates being built worth talking about outside of Dublin where are ppl supposed to live. I know in Galway city in the past 10 years there was I'd say 200 houses at most built in that time. Even today there is hardly 100 houses across the city in the pipeline to be built.

So what are ppl to do. If you can't buy a house in a town or city, the next option is try build one out the country

duffysfarm

i live about an hour from Dublin. part of me is thinking that the council is just greedy giving planning so they may get in more more through contributions etc

jay0109

Was in the west last week and saw a couple of new houses being built in different fields. Asked the locals who was building them to be told they didn't know!
There's a stretch of coast road near where I grew up that now has a house every 100 yards or so for 4 miles. And the majority of them were build in the last 20 years

Turnipman

jay0109 wrote: »

Was in the west last week and saw a couple of new houses being built in different fields. Asked the locals who was building them to be told they didn't know!
There's a stretch of coast road near where I grew up that now has a house every 100 yards or so for 4 miles. And the majority of them were build in the last 20 years

The Missus and I spent a few nights on the Dingle peninsula for the first time in over 20 years last summer.

We simply couldn't believe the number of new builds all along the Ventry/Slea Head/Ballyferriter/Feohanach/Cuas route. We both left vowing that we'd never return. For us, the planners have ruined the magic of the place - but maybe we're just getting old.

ganmo

A thought hit me last week that cocos are using one off builds as a way of widening narrow roads.
They grant permission on the basis that their boundary will be 1 or 2 meters further in from the road.

BarryD2

Turnipman wrote: »

The Missus and I spent a few nights on the Dingle peninsula for the first time in over 20 years last summer.

We simply couldn't believe the number of new builds all along the Ventry/Slea Head/Ballyferriter/Feohanach/Cuas route. We both left vowing that we'd never return. For us, the planners have ruined the magic of the place - but maybe we're just getting old.

Absolutely agree with regard to the Dingle peninsula - large parts have been utterly marred by one off housing, which has been going on for the past 20 years and more. Kerry County Council have an awful lot to answer for there.

Spent a day once with a chap from Leitrim - this was during the Celtic Tiger times. We passed one site / house after the next and yer man regaling me with just how many €0000s each rushy patch had been sold for. Having grown up there, he just couldn't believe it, it was a continuous source of amazement.

patsy_mccabe

It depends who you are? There's a road near me about 2 miles long. The first half has houses on both sides. All sites sold around the same time at the height of the boom. On the other end of the road I know a farmer there who can't get planning for his own son.
Who sold all the sites? Yep a FF councillor.

Cantona's Collars

Turnipman wrote: »

But Planning Applications are one thing - grants of planning permission are quite another!

It's possible that land owners are trying to get PP for various sites in the hope that one or two will get the green light. Or are you saying that WCC are granting most of the applications?

There's a boom in once off builds down here again. Not just applications but sites open and blocks laid,a lot more than anywhere else I saw on my travels.

Eggs For Dinner

I live in a one-off house in the countryside. (I bought it already built). It was put up in accordance with planning permission and I now own it outright. Tough if it doesn't suit your ideal of what the countryside should look like, or if such decisions should be the reserve of the agricultural sector. I have as much right to enjoy country living as anyone without being forced in to an 'estate'

jay0109

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

I live in a one-off house in the countryside. (I bought it already built). It was put up in accordance with planning permission and I now own it outright. Tough if it doesn't suit your ideal of what the countryside should look like, or if such decisions should be the reserve of the agricultural sector. I have as much right to enjoy country living as anyone without being forced in to an 'estate'

Indeedin you do. But don't be whinging about having no broadband or lack of public transport etc

Eggs For Dinner

jay0109 wrote: »

Indeedin you do. But don't be whinging about having no broadband or lack of public transport etc

I had very bad broadband until recently, there is no public transport near me, no water scheme, the kid's school was 5kms away and the nearest place to buy a litre of milk is 3kms away. I accepted all of these things as being part of country living. My point is that I am entitled to live in one-off housing in the middle of a green belt if I apply for, and am granted, planning permission.

bogman_bass

It depends if you want the country side to be a living breathing commmunity or a museum. I know which I rather.

jay0109

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

I had very bad broadband until recently, there is no public transport near me, no water scheme, the kid's school was 5kms away and the nearest place to buy a litre of milk is 3kms away. I accepted all of these things as being part of country living. My point is that I am entitled to live in one-off housing in the middle of a green belt if I apply for, and am granted, planning permission.

Bully for you. But there are thousands of others in 1-off housing who aren't as accepting of the lack of services

jay0109

bogman_bass wrote: »

It depends if you want the country side to be a living breathing commmunity or a museum. I know which I rather.

It certainly is no museum with the level of 1-off house building going on

Eggs For Dinner

jay0109 wrote: »

Bully for you. But there are thousands of others in 1-off housing who aren't as accepting of the lack of services

That's their problem, but this thread seems to be about the right for people to be allowed build one-off housing in the countryside

I says

Go from Galway city to spiddal and see the dog****e they have made of the place in the last twenty years.
Wild Atlantic way my backside.
One off housing way in all shapes and sizes.

ganmo

jay0109 wrote: »

Bully for you. But there are thousands of others in 1-off housing who aren't as accepting of the lack of services

Or the imposition of having slurry spread in the field beside them

anthony500_1

I says wrote:

Go from Galway city to spiddal and see the dog****e they have made of the place in the last twenty years. Wild Atlantic way my backside. One off housing way in all shapes and sizes.

100% agree. I tried to get planning for something very similar to the nearest house to my site which is a 100+yr old 2 story farm house. They wouldn't even entertain a planning application for such a house. Instead they forced me into building a very modern style house which in my opinion does not fit in but that's all I could get planning for in the end.

I'm not on the wild Atlantic way but these type houses seems to be what the galway planners seem to want....... A "modern style" house is the way forward from what I've seen built and what I've had to build myself in recent years.

Think they have watched to much Dermot bannon ifim honest and base there ideas on his way of thinking.

Turnipman

Cantona's Collars wrote: »

There's a boom in once off builds down here again. Not just applications but sites open and blocks laid,a lot more than anywhere else I saw on my travels.

That's interesting given that the Wexford County Housing Development Plan 2013 - 2019 states that " There is an adequate supply of land zoned for residential use in the county to accommodate the projected increase in demand over the period of the Strategy"

https://www.wexfordcoco.ie/sites/default/files/content/Planning/WexCoPlan13-19/Volume6.pdf

TooOldBoots

These one off houses are very destructive. The newer they are the bigger and more in your face they have become. All of them facing the road, ugly af. What wisdom have the planners to allow these half acre muck mansions to be built. Countryside is ruined, a bloody eyesore most of them. Septic tanks and so called "bio treatment systems" are polluting the rivers and lakes.
Road networks unable to cope with all the 2 and 3 cars that come with each house.
Keeping sheep is a thing of the past in most places with all the dogs, those same dogs aren't shy of cattle either.
Irish countryside is becoming an ugly place that will soon hold nothing for the tourist, and farming practices will become very restrictive as more non-farming folk object to Slurry, dust from hay, noise from livestock and tractors etc

Turnipman

anthony500_1 wrote: »

100% agree. I tried to get planning for something very similar to the nearest house to my site which is a 100+yr old 2 story farm house. They wouldn't even entertain a planning application for such a house. Instead they forced me into building a very modern style house which in my opinion does not fit in but that's all I could get planning for in the end.

I'm not on the wild Atlantic way but these type houses seems to be what the galway planners seem to want....... A "modern style" house is the way forward from what I've seen built and what I've had to build myself in recent years.

Think they have watched to much Dermot bannon ifim honest and base there ideas on his way of thinking.

I can understand them wanting you to build an energy efficient house, but surely that can be provided for within the outline of a 100 year old farmhouse shape.

Perhaps they don't want a plague of replica 100 year old farmhouses with pvc fascia, soffits, doors and window frames all over the place!

duffysfarm

yes according to the law you are entitled to live where you want if you get planning. however sometimes the law is an ass and i think the majority of people would not agree with one off housing and its effect on the countryside. tooOldboots makes some very valid points in his post a few posts back. if you go to some countries on the continent you can travel miles and miles without seeing a house, unlike here. here we seem to be happier spreading out and out rather than up.

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

I had very bad broadband until recently, there is no public transport near me, no water scheme, the kid's school was 5kms away and the nearest place to buy a litre of milk is 3kms away. I accepted all of these things as being part of country living. My point is that I am entitled to live in one-off housing in the middle of a green belt if I apply for, and am granted, planning permission.

Cantona's Collars

Turnipman wrote: »

That's interesting given that the Wexford County Housing Development Plan 2013 - 2019 states that " There is an adequate supply of land zoned for residential use in the county to accommodate the projected increase in demand over the period of the Strategy"

https://www.wexfordcoco.ie/sites/default/files/content/Planning/WexCoPlan13-19/Volume6.pdf

No major schemes can be started in Enniscorthy until the main drainage upgrade is done,the only building of estates is the finishing of ones that were halted due to the crash. Wexford town and Gorey seeing a boom in estate building.

Birdnuts

Different counties have different approaches - someone mentioned Wexford being a free for all, I've noticed that too, same in Kildare my home county. Wheres the likes of Wicklow are much more restrictive. Think the policy needs to be set nationally with protections in place for sensitive landscapes. Road safety needs to be taken into account too, its crazy the amount of houses you see in rural areas that have entrance on blind corners and other accident blackspots:(.

County plans should prioritize access to one- off houses too. Obviously farmers and other folk who work in the countryside should have priority, followed by people who intend to keep small stock, ponys or grow veg for their own use but work in nearby towns. Would have very little sympathy though for the types who build Southfork type dwellings surrounded by acres of sterile lawns and who have no connection to the area - I find these are the same types that whinge about the smell of manure, crow bangers, cattle on roads etc.

TooOldBoots

The planners have no clue, the housing estates that get built in Ireland would not inspire anyone to live in them. Most are built around the car. All of them contain row after row of replicated houses. Why do all these houses have to look the same in a housing estate, is it so that they can be horsed up cheap and fast? We seem to copy what was built in the UK and continent after WW2 where they had a need for fast low cost housing after they had bombed the sh!te out of the cities. But yet in Ireland 75 years later we still copy that system.
Government here should be using the zoned land it owns, design modern housing and then tender out the building to the construction companies.

ganmo

Birdnuts wrote: »

Different counties have different approaches - someone mentioned Wexford being a free for all, I've noticed that too, same in Kildare my home county. Wheres the likes of Wicklow are much more restrictive. Think the policy needs to be set nationally with protections in place for sensitive landscapes. Road safety needs to be taken into account too, its crazy the amount of houses you see in rural areas that have entrance on blind corners and other accident blackspots:(.

County plans should prioritize access to one- off houses too. Obviously farmers and other folk who work in the countryside should have priority, followed by people who intend to keep small stock, ponys or grow veg for their own use but work in nearby towns. Would have very little sympathy though for the types who build Southfork type dwellings surrounded by acres of sterile lawns and who have no connection to the area - I find these are the same types that whinge about the smell of manure, crow bangers, cattle on roads etc.

Wicklow’s policy of needing an economic attachment to the area was challenged in court and was told its not lawful

arctictree

ganmo wrote: »

Wicklow’s policy of needing an economic attachment to the area was challenged in court and was told its not lawful

Are you sure about that? I thought that it hasn't actually been challenged in open court? The county plan states that you must have a 'local or economic' need to build. In practice the planners just seem to concentrate on the local part.

TheRiverman

The obnoxious housing estates that were built in and around villages during the "boom" are way more of an eyesore than any one off houses in the country.

ganmo

arctictree wrote: »

Are you sure about that? I thought that it hasn't actually been challenged in open court? The county plan states that you must have a 'local or economic' need to build. In practice the planners just seem to concentrate on the local part.

This is what I must of read
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/brothers-win-challenge-over-refusal-of-planning-for-wicklow-homes-1.3358818

they actually used the economic need to get the planning. sorry:(

Cattlepen

Birdnuts wrote: »

Different counties have different approaches - someone mentioned Wexford being a free for all, I've noticed that too, same in Kildare my home county. Wheres the likes of Wicklow are much more restrictive. Think the policy needs to be set nationally with protections in place for sensitive landscapes. Road safety needs to be taken into account too, its crazy the amount of houses you see in rural areas that have entrance on blind corners and other accident blackspots:(.

County plans should prioritize access to one- off houses too. Obviously farmers and other folk who work in the countryside should have priority, followed by people who intend to keep small stock, ponys or grow veg for their own use but work in nearby towns. Would have very little sympathy though for the types who build Southfork type dwellings surrounded by acres of sterile lawns and who have no connection to the area - I find these are the same types that whinge about the smell of manure, crow bangers, cattle on roads etc.[/quote


The good people of Kildare cc refused me planning on my own farm which I fulltime farm since I left school in 1989 and the local councilor told me that a very senior person in the planning section said “ tell that fellow farmers better get used to living in towns”. I had to give a planning expert a fortune to write a dossier of answers to all the possible questions they could ask, before they asked them, on second application. I was living in a caddy van during lambing and calving while my wife was 8 miles away in rental accommodation. Very stressful time

TooOldBoots

I dont think anyone would object to a farm house. Its those one off muck mansions built on the half acre site facing the road that have no place in the countryside.

arctictree

ganmo wrote: »

This is what I must of read
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/brothers-win-challenge-over-refusal-of-planning-for-wicklow-homes-1.3358818

they actually used the economic need to get the planning. sorry:(

We spent years trying to get planning under the economic need rule but where continuously refused. They couldn't accept that we needed a house on the farm because we already had a house a few miles away. Didn't care that I had to walk 2 miles numerous times daily through bad snow during lambing or that we needed to haul equipment up and down the road etc etc

Eggs For Dinner

TooOldBoots wrote: »

I dont think anyone would object to a farm house. Its those one off muck mansions built on the half acre site facing the road that have no place in the countryside.

I'm not a farmer, so why would I want a farmhouse? This is my home, where I've chosen to live. I'm not a tourist attraction. I have a modern(ish) 3 bedroom dormer bungalow on 1/3 acre of garden. I'm a good neighbour, keep myself to myself and I obey the rules of the countryside when I'm out with my dog.

If you think I should live in a box in a housing estate to suit your vision of what our countryside should look like, you're going to be disappointed.

Bullocks

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

I'm not a farmer, so why would I want a farmhouse? This is my home, where I've chosen to live. I'm not a tourist attraction. I have a modern(ish) 3 bedroom dormer bungalow on 1/3 acre of garden. I'm a good neighbour, keep myself to myself and I obey the rules of the countryside when I'm out with my dog.

If you think I should live in a box in a housing estate to suit your vision of what our countryside should look like, you're going to be disappointed.

Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to move back into town ðŸ˜
There is loads of one off housing around us and to be honest I prefer the blow ins to a lot of the locals. Some of the house's could be a blot on the landscape but that's down to the planners more than the people buying them

TooOldBoots

Eggs For Dinner wrote: »

I'm not a farmer, so why would I want a farmhouse? This is my home, where I've chosen to live. I'm not a tourist attraction. I have a modern(ish) 3 bedroom dormer bungalow on 1/3 acre of garden. I'm a good neighbour, keep myself to myself and I obey the rules of the countryside when I'm out with my dog.

If you think I should live in a box in a housing estate to suit your vision of what our countryside should look like, you're going to be disappointed.

You wouldn't mind another couple of one off muck mansions built around you so

I dont think that there are too many houses in the countryside. The problem is that they are all located along the country roadsides. If you drive around the country now, the only place you can see the irish countryside is from the motorways. Once you get to the smaller roads, all you see is bungalow bliss and worse.

Planners should be rigorous on developments on the roadside but could encourage farmers to build roadways into their lands to four or five sites, all substantially out of sight from the roadways, instead of putting them in a ribbon along the road.

Planners also place blighting conditions too, for example, by insisting that garages not be hidden behind the house but rather placed away from the house and separated from it by (i think) 10m, and visible from the road.

Councils often include a condition that a natural mixed irish hedge is to be planted along the roadside in fron of the house, but this seems to be rarely complied with, further blighting the appearance of the countryside.

Eggs For Dinner

TooOldBoots wrote:

You wouldn't mind another couple of one off muck mansions built around you so

There are plenty already, we all seem to get along. Lovely part of the country. I'm currently sitting out in my garden with a beer looking over a sweeping valley having spent all day in an office, which is a 10 minute commute away. Would you be happier if I was up to my armpits spreading slurry and going home afterwards for the tae?

This country is for all it's citizens to enjoy lawfully, as they see fit

cashcow

This thread seems to be about townies annoyed at losing some of the picturesque scenery they had while on their annual trip to the countryside that is now spoilt by people's homes. quite ironic that most country people would do anything not to have to visit a city/large town.

kerryjack

Don't mind the one off houses at all and if you went back 150 years they were probably more of a population living in the country than there is now a lot of these so called blow ins contribute a lot to local economy keeping schools and local watering holes open there is 2 blow ins training my lad in football where the natives couldn't be arsed so if you have a few pound your more than welcome down here.