Housing generally and Local needs (not another thread :) )

katiekat01

Before I start, I am not familiar with the planning process and have only been learning about it. My partner and I were interested in building a house in a rural location in Ireland, in the overall area of Dublin catchment. However, due to our naivety we have come across the issue that many people have identified on previous forum posts with regard to local needs rules. We are from way down the country, so in no way a local person to the Dublin catchment area and are also returning migrants from abroad to even our own rural homeplaces. We are also employees of companies and therefore do no have our own business or add to local areas in or around Dublin.

It has become clear that we will not be able to build a rural house and work in Dublin. Furthermore, I understand the reason why local needs exist, in terms of the environment and sustainable development, commuting on the road network as regards pollution and traffic, centralisation of amenities and services etc. But we are beginning to think of the workplace changing significantly, where we will be working remotely indefinitely for a number of days every week and therefore not be commuting on the road network i.e. remaining locally.

It is just very demoralising when you see the condition of the second-hand property stock (very bad BER ratings, poor layouts etc., very expensive) and also the poor quality (despite being ‘A-rated’) of the developer built homes, particularly in the Dublin belt. The developer houses are bare minimum standard finish, they are in fact reminiscent of council houses from the 70’s but at a 500k price tag. The whole local needs appears to be like we are living in a totalitarian regime, where your only alternatives are the developers or second hand, any newly built homes you cannot have or have any determination over your own home.

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We would greatly appreciate any advice.

1. What would be possible alternatives?

2. Are there any areas where local needs do not apply? I have found some Council development plans citing ‘structurally weak areas’ where this may be possible but these are all very far away from urban centres by their very nature and certainly does not include Meath, Wicklow, Kildare etc.

3. If you buy a second-hand home in the countryside with the intention of renovating, are you prevented from this also? Or does it just become a normal planning application, whereby the planning, sightlines, aesthetics etc. come into the play and local needs is not required to be met. Obviously, if a second-hand house is bought, then the requirement for housing need is no longer there, so does that mean it could affect your chance of planning permission?

4. With the latest council development plans, it appears that the ‘one-off’ house in a rural area will become a thing of the past and things are becoming more onerous, even if you are a local in your own rural area. There are reports that the local needs rule is against EU law, have there been any challenges to the rule in this country?

BryanF

1. Buy
2. Yes. But you are Correct typically not near urban centres.
3. If you can buy a second hand house, great. Normal planning rules apply for extensions but not housing need. Yes, if you buy, then you don’t have a housing need and that could go against you in the future should you wish to build.
4. I think it’s great rural housing is being monitored and managed. I don’t think the eu ruling will make any difference. It’s down to the individual councils to implement that ruling.

Metric Tensor

Buy a second hand house in the area you want and majorly renovate/extend it. Planning rules will obviously apply but there's a lot you can do within these rules. Talk to a local planning agent prior to purchasing.

Also - theres the more long term strategy of getting a job in the rural area in which you want to live.

All these rules only exist because so many people want to sleep in the countryside and spend their days in the nearby city.

Lumen

Difficult to advise without knowing budget.

katiekat01

Lumen wrote: »

Difficult to advise without knowing budget.

Up to 600k

katiekat01

BryanF wrote: »

1. Buy
2. Yes. But you are Correct typically not near urban centres.
3. If you can buy a second hand house, great. Normal planning rules apply for extensions but not housing need. Yes, if you buy, then you don’t have a housing need and that could go against you in the future should you wish to build.
4. I think it’s great rural housing is being monitored and managed. I don’t think the eu ruling will make any difference. It’s down to the individual councils to implement that ruling.

Thanks for your points. I will look into buying, and also try to find one we can improve internally or extend.
I understand your point on managing and monitoring rural housing. We are just frustrated with the developments for sale, particularly the quality of the external space and gardens with new houses, the external amenity is the biggest issue.

katiekat01

Metric Tensor wrote: »

Buy a second hand house in the area you want and majorly renovate/extend it. Planning rules will obviously apply but there's a lot you can do within these rules. Talk to a local planning agent prior to purchasing.

Also - theres the more long term strategy of getting a job in the rural area in which you want to live.

All these rules only exist because so many people want to sleep in the countryside and spend their days in the nearby city.

When you say majorly extend/renovate, are there any limitations as regards local needs or does the extent of the extension just come under normal planning considerations? What is termed an extension...just building onto an existing house, even if the existing house is small? Alternatively, say we bought a second-hand home and demolished it entirely and rebuilt a new home- is that possible?

Not a bad idea getting a job in the rural area and add to the area itself as a community member.

JustAThought

katiekat01 wrote: »

Up to 600k

TBH it all sounds very vague. You are living abroad for years, say you are from the country, din’t specify where, but want to build a house ‘somewhere’ in the country and commute to Dublin. The devil is in ALL of the detail. What county are your from - ie have been born and reared in? How long did you live there. How ling since you have moved out of that county? How many years have you been living out of the country? Where do you live or rent now and for how long. Where is your family now living? And where now in Dublin do you or your OH work and what kind of contract - or is a ST / visa job? There is big difference between a commute from North County Dublin to ‘the country’ or South Dublin to different counties . And each different county has their own specific rules - many of which are predicated on the questions above.

Then the real problems start!!!

You mentioned your innocence in relation to all of this - it has been bashed out in the media for decades - peoples anger and frustration and the spiraling prices for locals in poor /low employment areas with prices and land being pushed out of their reach by people coming in and doing exactly what you want - how can you or your family have missed this - or all the last chance options to build and buy that have been so heavily discussed for literally decades?

Anyway - regarding planning - in case you are innocent in this area too - this also is a total minefield and totally fraught with obsolete thinking and design restrictions that would make a blind man weep. The next road - if you are determined to build - might be even more soul destroying than the first. Bewarned!!!

One has to ask why with a budget of 600k you don’t buy something that exists or is partially built with planning permission existing and modify it to
your specific needs or design criteria ( assuming it is mostly extensions/ interiors/aesthetic internal remodelling). Might save years off your life.

JustAThought

JustAThought wrote: »

TBH it all sounds very vague. You are living abroad for years, say you are from the country, din’t specify where, but want to build a house ‘somewhere’ in the country and commute to Dublin. The devil is in ALL of the detail. What county are your from - ie have been born and reared in? How long did you live there. How ling since you have moved out of that county? How many years have you been living out of the country? Where do you live or rent now and for how long. Where is your family now living? And where now in Dublin do you or your OH work and what kind of contract - or is a ST / visa job? There is big difference between a commute from North County Dublin to ‘the country’ or South Dublin to different counties . And each different county has their own specific rules - many of which are predicated on the questions above.

Then the real problems start!!!

You mentioned your innocence in relation to all of this - it has been bashed out in the media for decades - peoples anger and frustration and the spiraling prices for locals in poor /low employment areas with prices and land being pushed out of their reach by people coming in and doing exactly what you want - how can you or your family have missed this - or all the last chance options to build and buy that have been so heavily discussed for literally decades?

Anyway - regarding planning - in case you are innocent in this area too - this also is a total minefield and totally fraught with obsolete thinking and design restrictions that would make a blind man weep. The next road - if you are determined to build - might be even more soul destroying than the first. Bewarned!!!

One has to ask why with a budget of 600k you don’t buy something that exists or is partially built with planning permission existing and modify it to
your specific needs or design criteria ( assuming it is mostly extensions/ interiors/aesthetic internal remodelling). Might save years off your life.

I’d also be wondering why someone would spend 600k on a house down the country to commute to a new job in Dublin (I assume) - especially if you had ties or links to return to another country - one where probably 600k could actually buy you something spectacular in a location that suited you. You might find, like many who bought down the country and ‘commute’ to Dublin, that the 3 hour commute in a rush hour that is increasingly endless, that you cannot avoid traffic and eye watering bottlenecks and spend your days chugging along in second gear in bumper to bumper motorway traffic, and see little of your home and even less of you partner and children should you (ever) have some.

Lumen

katiekat01 wrote: »

Up to 600k

Ok, well I'd say your best best is to buy a wreck under 250k, knock and rebuild.

You won't get a big new build for 350k in the GDA, but if the design is simple then it should be comfortable and efficient, and can be extended later.

You won't be in easy commuting range of Dublin though, it'll be the farthest (and/or least attractive) parts of Meath or Wicklow.

If this was an attractive option then everyone would do it. 600k isn't enough to outbid the subpopulation of Dublin looking for a bit of space in the countryside.

One thing that may well change the game is Starlink. It makes locations otherwise unserved even by line of sight wireless broadband suddenly liveable for people who rely on internet access.

katiekat01

JustAThought wrote: »

TBH it all sounds very vague. You are living abroad for years, say you are from the country, din’t specify where, but want to build a house ‘somewhere’ in the country and commute to Dublin. The devil is in ALL of the detail. What county are your from - ie have been born and reared in? How long did you live there. How ling since you have moved out of that county? How many years have you been living out of the country? Where do you live or rent now and for how long. Where is your family now living? And where now in Dublin do you or your OH work and what kind of contract - or is a ST / visa job? There is big difference between a commute from North County Dublin to ‘the country’ or South Dublin to different counties . And each different county has their own specific rules - many of which are predicated on the questions above.

Then the real problems start!!!

You mentioned your innocence in relation to all of this - it has been bashed out in the media for decades - peoples anger and frustration and the spiraling prices for locals in poor /low employment areas with prices and land being pushed out of their reach by people coming in and doing exactly what you want - how can you or your family have missed this - or all the last chance options to build and buy that have been so heavily discussed for literally decades?

Anyway - regarding planning - in case you are innocent in this area too - this also is a total minefield and totally fraught with obsolete thinking and design restrictions that would make a blind man weep. The next road - if you are determined to build - might be even more soul destroying than the first. Bewarned!!!

One has to ask why with a budget of 600k you don’t buy something that exists or is partially built with planning permission existing and modify it to
your specific needs or design criteria ( assuming it is mostly extensions/ interiors/aesthetic internal remodelling). Might save years off your life.

All good points and things we need to give greater consideration to what we are talking about (in terms of commuting, impact on life etc.)
I appreciate the devil is in the detail and hard to advise without sufficient information. A lot of the detail is vague because we haven’t got a clue what we are at i.e. not sure where exactly we want to live, apart from where we know we don’t. We both work in permanent jobs, my partner works in the city centre in Dublin and I am northside of the city close to Phibsboro. We are from rural backgrounds in Leitrim and Cavan and grew up there, both families still and have always lived there; we lived there until college at age 18; we returned to Ireland from the UK after four years and have been renting in Stoneybatter for the past two, so probably not all that recently returned.

I am not joking, it really has just dawned on us that people have been screaming about this issue for years. I know that is probably hard to believe or understand, but I suppose people often don’t really consider other people’s issues in greater detail until you are thinking about it yourself/ impacted by things yourself. As you point out, many locals are priced out of their own areas by people looking to live in the countryside, as we are also proposing to do, so can understand the need to prevent every person who comes along from building in the countryside.
Also, I would say that a lot of people I have spoken with recently are shocked it is really ‘that’ restrictive. Many people seem to be aware you are restricted in Gaeltacht/ touristy areas, but many think that planning is simply difficult to get and you are at least able to apply for planning (even if you are eventually rejected). In fact, I recently was speaking with a friend who is a civil engineer and he had no idea about local needs, as he has worked on mainly commercial projects and has very little experience with it i.e. doesn’t know any of the development plans. I presumed anyone working in the area would also know a lot about it.

It is a good point what you say about potentially spending that kind of money down the country just to commute up to Dublin. We could probably do something better with the budget we have. It also could be a lot worse commuting from the greater Dublin area on a constant basis.

katiekat01

Lumen wrote: »

Ok, well I'd say your best best is to buy a wreck under 250k, knock and rebuild.

You won't get a big new build for 350k in the GDA, but if the design is simple then it should be comfortable and efficient, and can be extended later.

You won't be in easy commuting range of Dublin though, it'll be the farthest (and/or least attractive) parts of Meath or Wicklow.

If this was an attractive option then everyone would do it. 600k isn't enough to outbid the subpopulation of Dublin looking for a bit of space in the countryside.

One thing that may well change the game is Starlink. It makes locations otherwise unserved even by line of sight wireless broadband suddenly liveable for people who rely on internet access.

Thanks for the advice. Certainly something to think about.


Any idea on the limits of the definition 'extension' i.e. say we bought a small house and tried to double it in size. Is that possible?


Would it be 'more difficult' to get permission to knock an entire house and build a new one?

arctictree

Maybe stating the obvious but why don't you build in Leitrim or Cavan. With working from home now it doesn't really matter where you are as long as you have good internet.

Lumen

katiekat01 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. Certainly something to think about.

Any idea on the limits of the definition 'extension' i.e. say we bought a small house and tried to double it in size. Is that possible?

Would it be 'more difficult' to get permission to knock an entire house and build a new one?

Take this with a pinch of salt as I'm not a planning or construction professional, but...

Most rural houses in Ireland (anything built with concrete IMO) are not worth preserving from an architectural heritage perspective, and may cost as much to bring up to modern standards as knock and rebuild. Most importantly though, the crap, small ugly ones are cheaper.

Obviously a larger house requires higher capacity water treatment to current standards, and that may be problematic especially on a small or poorly draining site, but it doesn't matter much whether you get to the larger size by extension or rebuild, once you are over the exempted development limits.

lalababa

Unfortunately one off building is a balls atm. Buy.... Have a good look around, sure you're bound to get something suitable. Don't get too hung up on BER or underfloor heating etc., .
With 600k budget you've no worries.
Even with a 300k you've no worries.
As you say ye might be working from home most of the week so decide how long a commute ye want to handle, then scour the area.
Good luck.

katiekat01

lalababa wrote: »

Unfortunately one off building is a balls atm. Buy.... Have a good look around, sure you're bound to get something suitable. Don't get too hung up on BER or underfloor heating etc., .
With 600k budget you've no worries.
Even with a 300k you've no worries.
As you say ye might be working from home most of the week so decide how long a commute ye want to handle, then scour the area.
Good luck.

Can you explain a bit further why you say building at the moment is a balls? We kind of feel that buying is gone too expensive and there are no houses with gardens, so building is out of necessity. I will certainly look around a bit deeper as regards buying.

awec

Not an expert in this area but worth pointing out that I think if you want to try the buy-and-renovate/knock method to get around local needs the property you are buying needs to be habitable (i.e. roof, waste, water and electricity).

If it's not habitable it's treated like a greenfield planning app and local needs then apply. Therefore buying a site with a derelict old house on it for example will not work.

This obviously means it's going to be expensive.

Metric Tensor

Councils differ in how much of an extension/rebuild they count as acceptable but most are reasonably accepting provided you're not making a massive eyesore. There's a house there anyway so it may as well be an acceptable looking modern one that's worth living in.

Get a professional to advise you. There's plenty of buildings out there where the shell is savable without levelling the whole thing. Although it may cost you almost as much.

Two things to watch out for are:

Road safety - in many cases you won't be able to do much with an unsafe entrance.

Effluent - rural houses need effluent treatment and disposal systems. If the ground isn't good enough or the site isn't big enough you won't be able to get around it easily.

Jem123

A site beside my house became available after I had successfully been granted pp for an extension. The extension is looking like it will be huge money and we are considering our options.

I live in Meath and hear they can be very difficult when it comes to planning. Would anyone have had a similar situation or know the likelihood of qualifying under local needs? I live in this house the last 6 years but am a local of over 20 years. Would be selling this house to build on the site.

Thanks

sydthebeat

Jem123 wrote: »

A site beside my house became available after I had successfully been granted pp for an extension. The extension is looking like it will be huge money and we are considering our options.

I live in Meath and hear they can be very difficult when it comes to planning. Would anyone have had a similar situation or know the likelihood of qualifying under local needs? I live in this house the last 6 years but am a local of over 20 years. Would be selling this house to build on the site.

Thanks

your 'housing need' has already been met

JustAThought

OP - I was reading recently on boards somewhere about the new stellar broadplan system ( by yer man who is/was CEO of Telsa) that that it may be available in some locations in Ireland soon enough for money that could be reasonably more expensive that other BB services but very managable. If you’re looking at a big house in the country with the aim of hoping to do some working from home I’d be seriously knocking on doors to see what internet is available and what hoops they had to go to to get it. Also if that (new) system might be available in that area. I unbelievably have some friends who moved from Dublin to big ole country pads and have either DIAL UP only or almost no functioning ‘broadband’ and are now snookered. Its hard to believe internet poverty is a thing here - and wouod make your whole plan impossible.

Also - I rented a place few years back for the hols and the huge old stone walls did not help my internet connection - I had to use the internet on the veranda in icy weather in in the big windowseat in the georgian loo!! Not a great home office for permanent use and the problem is real!!! where I live now only one service provider can reach my house for phone use - the other 3 just shrug & say it won’t work there - of course the ‘national broadband connector’ 3 said it did and I hd to threaten to take them to court for breech of contract to get out of the contract I signed - utterly useless. Don’t believe a word they say unless you see and test if yourself first.

JustAThought

Just cos Im locked into my house by myself & its been a quiet day/week/month/year I googled detached houses and bungalows for sale ireland and my home came up with 3,000+ in the region of 650 K or less. Some beauties - no doubt if you googled to include farm or site you’d have a far greater range. Its easy to lose the run when you have big money to spend but it might be in a few years that you might want to reduce hours and start a family and maybe be working less or down to one salary only for a few years. 150k or 200k could make life-changing quality of life options available to you then - marble floor are fantastic but how many rooms and beautiful extra bathrooms can make the difference between seeing your husband/family and having the idyllic stress free country life you’d love - not just working night and day from a beautifully styled room but never being free or available to do things with your children or enjoy a lifestyle of freedom and long days in the sun and country walks and horseriding. Not just going from bedroom to car to commute and work crucifying hours or to desk and PC in a room to pay a monster mortgage when less could have allowed far more overall.

katiekat01

JustAThought wrote: »

Just cos Im locked into my house by myself & its been a quiet day/week/month/year I googled detached houses and bungalows for sale ireland and my home came up with 3,000+ in the region of 650 K or less. Some beauties - no doubt if you googled to include farm or site you’d have a far greater range. Its easy to lose the run when you have big money to spend but it might be in a few years that you might want to reduce hours and start a family and maybe be working less or down to one salary only for a few years. 150k or 200k could make life-changing quality of life options available to you then - marble floor are fantastic but how many rooms and beautiful extra bathrooms can make the difference between seeing your husband/family and having the idyllic stress free country life you’d love - not just working night and day from a beautifully styled room but never being free or available to do things with your children or enjoy a lifestyle of freedom and long days in the sun and country walks and horseriding. Not just going from bedroom to car to commute and work crucifying hours or to desk and PC in a room to pay a monster mortgage when less could have allowed far more overall.

Thanks for the advice on the future internet possibilities of Starlink etc. There are a lot of developments in this market, with Siro also expanding. It is real hit and miss for internet coverage, with some areas fine and others next door not being covered. We also know the experience of internet poverty really being a thing, especially down in Leitrim and even quite close to Dublin. Even mobile cover is bad in places e.g. 3 coverage around Enfield in Meath can be bad, as an example.



I think it will all be dependent on how the future plays out with regard to remote working. If remote working continues, then down the country anywhere is a possibility for us regarding housing. The idea of commuting 5 days to a rural location in the Dublin catchment area might not be feasible. Currently, it does not seem all that bad (probably because we have been not commuting for 12months), but things might feel very different when the stark reality of commuting hits us.


As you rightly pointed out, if one day we have kids etc. it would be crazy to be commuting a couple of hours everyday and missing out on life. And working night and day to pay off a mortgage may not be enviable too. We are looking around at other properties to buy and trying to focus on more modest aspirations which wouldn’t negatively affect our lives (in the evenings after work etc., by not having to commute). There are some amazing properties for the budget, now that we are looking around. And maybe even a modest extension would bring up to what our initial goals were.