homeowner in dublin being pursued over external insulation

Ezeoul

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123227499#Comment_123227499

I love how you used an example from Coronation Street! 🤣

HeidiHeidi

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123228037#Comment_123228037

There's a house near me in Dublin 8 that's not a million miles off that - bog standard red brick terrace, but they have the bottom half of the front painted shiny bright red, window sills bright lime green, porch bright yellow, upstairs bricks left bare.

It'd give you a headache looking at it!

Gumbo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123227981#Comment_123227981

You’d be wrong in that respect.

Pre validation is done by the technicians in the drawing offices. The planners don’t even get involved until it’s time to inspect the site notices and after the planning application has been validation by the drawing office and the registers admin staff.

The planning process is widely different to what you think it is.

GAAcailin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123227555#Comment_123227555

Wasn't this originally Jack and Vera Duckworth's house - they thought they were very posh at the time with the cladding

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123227981#Comment_123227981

We don't know that that council are responding to a complaint. There are any ways it van get on to their radar, trying to sell is the obvious one.

As for your hunch, as others have said you are mistaken. There has been no rejection by the council. So your theory is baseless. IT has been determined invalid, due to the issue listed above. If they submitted a valid application it would probably be approved as it.

Complying with visual appearance requirements that adds costs will will deter people from external insulation.

What visual appearance requirements? There are none that I am aware of.
The change in appearance means they are require to apply for planning, there is no rule that says that is an issue.

Where I am, the aesthetic meddling is not about brick finishes, it's about swathes of natural stone. Good luck making that compatible with external insulation and not driving up the cost.

Why would it have to be compatible?
If your house planning approval is for a stone elevation, and you want to change it. Then simple lodge an application to insulation and render it. Simple.

The Limerick council rejection of the solar panels was also on the basis of aesthetics. It's pretty clear the government does not think visual appearance trumps their CO2 aspirations.

I don't think there is any evidence that the council thinks appearance trump CO2 aspirations.

I think you are confusing the council planning permission is required. And the council rejecting permission or saying that they will not approval in principle.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123227634#Comment_123227634

1. Papers rarely factcheck this community pieces. Plus "Council hates homeowner reducing his carbon footprint" gets more clicks than "Councils rejects planning drawing done by an 8 year old".
2. SDCC, or any council, only know what they know. They don't know about development if it happens discretely.
   Regarding the case you mentioned, it's not clear what conditions are an issue. But is the council aware? Are the materially different from the rant - sometimes you need to pick your battles

magicbastarder

FWIW the IT have updated the article:

"While he has applied for retention planning permission twice since first being alerted to this, his applications have come back as invalid, and he is now in the process of applying for a third time."

Ezeoul

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123230003#Comment_123230003

I believe you're right!

Many years ago, I had a boyfriend whose parents' house had this cladding (only in shades of beige). His mother thought it was posh too. :)

(edit) I just had to look! I am aware this is creepy, but I street viewed the house and it still has the cladding but now painted a uniform cream. 😂

Grey123

The media (IT in this case) really do the public a disservice running stuff like this.

It creates a narrative of useless government officials that generates clicks but impacts the confidence the public has in institutions.

It was the most viewed story on the paper yesterday, in this case the key facts of the story were wrong yet the damage is done.

I worked on a case (not in Ireland) where the local authority spoke to a cafe about blocking the footpath with tables and chairs. If he didn’t manage how much space they took there would be enforcement. He ran to to the paper about how the government were trying to shut his community cafe.

The reason for the visit was due to multiple complaints for people with kids and blind people about needing to walk on the road to pass. Front page news. Save our Cafe stuff. Papers never asked local authority for comment as they didn’t want a balanced story. Subsequent reviews showed they didn’t have any of the permission for food prep on premises either. They had turned a shop into a cafe.

What should be a story about a bad business owner putting vulnerable people a risk and ignoring food safely was all about the big bad government.

I suspect in this case it was investigated on the back of a public complaint.

Kaisr Sose

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123230084#Comment_123230084

Agree on 1, but it still does not make it right to print a one sided story. I see another poster has said IT have amended the piece

On 2, yes, its materially different. A different roof detail (no upstand and bodged rain channel)

To rear, the extension is not set back from the boundary* (as per submitted drawings) , is bigger than drawings, and the foundations undersail a boundary.

*This was an application for retention, where what was built was not aligned wrin the drawings submitted for retention. This was pointed out to SDCC in a comprehensive objection. SDCC stated the building could only proceed with the necessary consent of the adjoining property owner. This was not granted. In fact, they were told they did not have consent and were asked to cease work. They continued to build.

SteM

https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/housing-planning/2025/03/03/system-would-grind-to-a-halt-if-everyone-sought-planning-permission-for-external-insulation-expert-says/

An follow up article on the IT.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123230886#Comment_123230886

It was in my eyes a missed opportunity for SDCC not to have communicated more effectively rather than rely on a canned answer in response to the Irish Times - or maybe the IT edited the full text of their response. Who knows.

I'd have responded more robustly with clear pointers to planning guidelines around EWI and let them put that in their pipe and smoke it. This laissez-faire attitude doesn't do any favours to the "narrative of useless government officials" as mentioned by @Grey123 above.

Grey123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123230998#Comment_123230998

It’s always tricky for government organisations to respond as they don’t want to / can’t get into details.

Be it a member of the public or a business they can almost get away with saying whatever they want and the organisation usually have to bite their tongue. It’s basically a one way fight.

The fact that there was no retention rejection basically makes this a non story but the damage is done.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123231384#Comment_123231384

They can state the facts, link to valid FAQ's and keep it generic or non-specific to the individual case. At the end of the day the submissions, drawings, address and correspondence are already available online so it's not like we're dealing something that wasn't already in the public realm.

Grey123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123231412#Comment_123231412

Ya. Fair enough. We don’t know what the response was. I have spend ages written those kind of responses only for none of it to go anywhere. Media aren’t interested in being educators or playing down the story.

Mellor

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123230886#Comment_123230886

That “expert” is making an irrelevant point. Nobody has suggested every EWI addition needs planning.

10-10-20

Ah sure look, it's all gone out of hand as obviously SDCC mustn't have communicated upwards and the Taoiseach responded to a question from Murphy to say "people should not be penalised for retrofitting their homes by adding insulation".

https://www.thejournal.ie/insulation-dublin-council-6639797-Mar2025/

Stating the facts early on would have nipped this, in my opinion.

Lumen

Same **** reporting from Niamh Towey in the follow up article.

I'd expect this kind of clickbait **** from the Indo but the IT are supposed to have journalistic standards.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123233003#Comment_123233003

Or if the householder had bothered to engage properly with the council over this, that would have nipped it in the bud too.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123233787#Comment_123233787

All of the above!

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123233787#Comment_123233787

The householder shouldn't have to engage with the council.

So far, It's all going the way I suggested it would. The government is realising that fitting external insulation should be exempt from the planning process, just as they came to realise with Solar.

He asked Martin if he agreed that external wall insulation should be exempt from requiring planning permission.

In response, Martin said he wanted to examine the details of the case as he was unfamiliar with the controversy, before adding that the government doesn’t want to discourage people from applying insulation to their homes.

“I don’t understand why the council is seeking planning permission,” the Fianna Fáil leader said.

“We do want people to insulate. We don’t want people to be penalised for insulation.”

…

But a gap seems to have arisen in legislation whereby – while some forms of insulation are exempt from planning permission – applying cladding to external walls is less clear.

Murphy told the Dáil that the Ryan household had taken “exactly the type of climate action” that government policy is designed to incentivise.

“They’re a clear win, a no-brainer for a householder who has reduced energy bills,” the People Before Profit TD said, adding that society as a whole benefits from lower carbon emissions and reduced air pollution.

He criticised the planning enforcement action taken by the council under the Planning and Development Act 2000, in which Ryan could face a fine which can reach up to €5,000. At the upper limit of penalties is a jail term for up to six months.

This is very likely going to end with legislation exempting external insulation from needing planning permission.

magicbastarder

Is it not that insulation per se does not require PP but significantly changing the look of your house does? The issue here is he changed the look of his house.

And even if they did pass legislation to explicitly allow insulation, it'd probably state you can't use it to significantly change the look of your house...

muffler

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123234419#Comment_123234419

Your last sentence is the real issue. That is sort of covered under current planning legislation but it is open to the opinion of different planners in different local authority areas. Some cases are quite clear and obvious while others are opinion based.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123234419#Comment_123234419

External insulation is always going to change the external appearance of a house, just as solar panels do. The appearance of properties should not be micro-managed by the state.

muffler

Just as a quick follow on from above. Here is the relevant wording of the current legislation governing exemptions for carrying out improvement works around the home ….. "development consisting of the carrying out of works for the maintenance, improvement or other alteration of any structure, being works which affect only the interior of the structure or which do not materially affect the external appearance of the structure so as to render the appearance inconsistent with the character of the structure or of neighbouring structures"

See Section 4.1.(h) here.

10-10-20

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123234551#Comment_123234551

External insulation is always going to change the external appearance of a house

No it doesn't. Many jobs around here are practically indistinguishable from the adjoining houses, so much so that only the shallow soffit, external reveal depth and the position of the front wall are different. That's not a material change in appearance.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123234619#Comment_123234619

That's great, now there's even less reason to exclude external insulation from requiring planning permission, n'est-ce pas?

Seth Brundle

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123234647#Comment_123234647

It has been said several times but you seem to keep repeating it so once more: external insulation does not require planning permission. Changing the appearance of the front of the house with regard to the neighbouring houses does require planning permission.

mickdw

Jesus after looking at the drawing that went in with that first application, that homeowner has some neck coming out in the media complaining that the council are sending them back technical correspondence that they don't understand.

The attempt is a piss take and its so far from being a valid application, that it's not even funny.

I have my issues with.planning department as much as the next man but this is just a joke.

Personally when submitting retention application, I submit a full set of drawings of original works, then a full set of works as constructed for Retention with a further drawing with the specifics for Retention outlined blue. This is to make it idiot proof and cristal clear what is being retained and what the retained works looks like.

Yer man with his childs drawing was never a serious attempt at a planning application.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123234654#Comment_123234654

I get that; solar panels alter the external appearance of houses too, hence the exemption from needing planning and why the government is likely to fix this nonsense with legislation:

“We do want people to insulate. We don’t want people to be penalised for insulation.”

The government didn't care about the alteration to appearance caused by solar panels and they are not going to care about it for external insulation installations. The government was just handed a report estimating Ireland could face fines of €28 Billion if something radical doesn't change soon with the slow pace of CO2 reduction.

€28B in fines or flip the bird to myopic bureaucratic, detail obsessed nimbys - Oooo, tough choice.

Watching the flip-flopping arguments going on is bemusing; external insulation doesn't normally require planning permission - in this case it does - external insulation alters the external appearance - no it doesn't. It's like talking to an Irish lawyer who's playing cute in order to seem smart.