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Gormley to relax rules on one-off housing along certain National Secondaries

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    #32
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    Stonewolf wrote: »
    I'm going to nip this in the bud right now. Ireland just like everywhere else has a tradition of nuclear settlement. This "tradition" argument is nonsense related to the fact that as a population we are still very close to our agrarian past unlike most developed countries which have a long history of industrialisation and the urbanisation that comes with it.

    If you want to live in the country, fine, do so, but don't trot out some rediculous semi-justification for building a single house and all the required support structures beside another single house with all the required support structures along a road the quality of which is increasingly degraded by an excess of one off developments.

    Country development should be in clusters, this doesn't mean it has to be in town but it does mean that if you want to build a house you either build it in a cluster and use the shared resources of that cluster or you get planning permission for a cluster and build all the support structures required to support the future filling in of that clusters allotments. That way a half dozen or so houses can share a single access point onto/off a road, they can share sewage (using a small treatment plant), they can have one water, communications and power trunk feeding their connections requiring less works when installing or when something goes wrong. They can walk between their houses without braving the road, they can even do small community projects like erecting a small wind generator, throwing up a few solar cells or even combine heating systems. This is the spirit of traditional Irish settlement, not mansions on the mountain top.

    The cluster housing idea, unfortunately falls foul of a planning regulation that prohihits "ribbon development" in other words no more than three houses in a row. The cluster idea would need an estate of one-offs to be built next to existing community to work. It can work, it should work, but it won't work because of the self interest of landowners etc.


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    #33
    danbohan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,914 ✭✭✭danbohan


    JupiterKid wrote: »
    Completely agree with that post.

    One-off rural houses are all about total mindless greed and selfishness as they don't internalise the huge external costs involved in their functioning. At least urban dwellings do.

    I sincerely hope the new EU water directive will effectively sound the death knell for new one-off rural house building.
    Ireland needs to mature and move on - McMansions in the scenic countryside with leaking, polluting septic tanks are the sign of a deeply immature and shallow society.


    sign of a deeply immature and shallow society

    i think thats best exlempified here by the urbanites in the 3 bed carboard semis who cannot afford or cope with living in the countryside and are extreamly jealous of those of us who do .


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    #34
    Aidan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 624 ✭✭✭Aidan1


    Country development should be in clusters, this doesn't mean it has to be in town but it does mean that if you want to build a house you either build it in a cluster and use the shared resources of that cluster or you get planning permission for a cluster and build all the support structures required to support the future filling in of that clusters allotments.

    Where I'm from we called clusters of houses and businesses in rural areas 'villages', and they worked quite well. You can centralise services like schools and shops, and both public and privately provided services can be delivered far more cheaply. Then came the 70s, and Bungalow Blitz, and ribbon development, and Dick Roche and relaxed rural planning guidelines and the celtic tiger and it all went a bit pear shaped ...

    Long story short, restraining one off housing in rural areas is not an argument about 'Dublin vs everywhere else', it's an argument in favour of nucleated settlement in general. Rural villages can be planned and organised in such a way as to provide the benefits of rural life, with an approximation of the economic and allocative efficiencies associated with urban living. They are also far more energy efficient than spreading development thinly over large areas, and services like waste water treatment, telecoms (incl FTTH) electricity and a whole raft of social services can be provided far more efficiently.


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    #35
    Pete_Cavan
    Registered Users Posts: 6,707 ✭✭✭Pete_Cavan


    Like I said in my earlier post, any new planning legislation should promote development within city/town/village boundaries and encourage the use of derelict buildings. Particularly when planning commercial/retail developments as the recent flood of large developments off bypasses etc. which has destroyed most regional towns.

    With regard to housing there is enough existing housing stock in this country, between what is currently occupided and unoccupied, that we do not need to take any more land for housing for many years to come. For housing outside of towns and villages we should be encouraging people to use existing houses, either renovating them or knocking and rebuilding them and reusing the existing entrance, utilities etc. subject to planning of course. People can still build their dream home in the middle of nowhere but it will just have to be on the site of an existing house with existing services.


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    #36
    ForiegnNational
    Registered Users Posts: 135 ✭✭ForiegnNational


    Firstly, danbohan, as a fellow rural "one-off" house dweller, can I say you are showing a complete lack of any credibility in any of your postings.

    The Town vs Countryside argument is obvious in the arguments...

    For the town dwellers, the concept of having to put in your own well and water treatment system and receiving your TV via Satellite and Broadband via radio seem alien to you as you are living in the "wired/piped" world. We do have to live "off-grid" with the exception of telephone and electricity, which ARE paid for by the builder of a new house and are not shared across everybody.

    For countryside dwellers like danbohan, of course once off development MUST stop. It is an absolute blight on the countryside, where every gombeen of a farmer has the "right" to build three god awful houses on their land, just because they happen to be born first and were therefore given the land by their parents (for FARMING not SELLING I will hasten to add).

    Yes the UK has incredibly tight planning permission, why do you think that every stone barn in the countryside is now converted and the only "new developments" you see are clustered in villages and are therefore attached to sustainable infrastructure.

    France is slightly different as the countryside is becoming denuded of people moving to cities for work. This has lead to the second home phenomena, where most of rural France is owned by Irish/English citizens.

    Germany again (in the bits I know) does not have random one-off dwellings everywhere. New developments are clustered.

    Are you saying that once again Ireland has found some magic formula, just like the housing boom, that lets us ignore what the rest of Europe has learned the hard way?


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    #37
    Stonewolf
    Registered Users Posts: 1,132 ✭✭✭Stonewolf


    Deleted User wrote: »
    The cluster housing idea, unfortunately falls foul of a planning regulation that prohihits "ribbon development" in other words no more than three houses in a row. The cluster idea would need an estate of one-offs to be built next to existing community to work. It can work, it should work, but it won't work because of the self interest of landowners etc.

    I've seen a couple of developments that are a bit like this but not quite fully there, mostly quite near villages. There's one near the family place in Donegal where a developer built everything you'd expect on a small estate, road, utilities, footpath etc ... but left the allotments at outline planning and sold them off.
    Aidan1 wrote: »
    Where I'm from we called clusters of houses and businesses in rural areas 'villages', and they worked quite well.

    I'm not talking about villages, I'm talking about groups of about a half dozen houses, my parents generation in Donegal all have houses near each other on family land, but they're all one offs and a mile or two out of town. They could have all built their houses near each other with shared services instead creating a cluster. They have no interest in living in the village itself, they shouldn't be forced to.


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    #38
    Aidan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 624 ✭✭✭Aidan1


    They have no interest in living in the village itself, they shouldn't be forced to.

    There we disagree. Their 'right' to live in the middle of no where (there is no such 'right' btw) conveys a significant short term cost on everyone else in the State, and an even more significant long term cost in terms of lost potential and opportunity cost.

    If they are willing to pay the full economic cost of schools, postal service, telecoms, electricity provision, fines for missing water quality standards, transport (as in the full economic cost of having a public road to their front door, and pay for their own transport fuel when oil hits $200 dollars per barrel), broadcasting, social services, health services, and lost revenue from tourism due to landscape damage (oh, and social welfare payments for the new unemployed who can't afford to work because they live too far from anywhere that is capable of generating employment) for their one off dwelling, then maybe, but I doubt it.

    Like ForeignNational points out, across most of Europe new one off rural dwellings are effectively out of the question for all of the reasons listed above. Decades of experience has informed their decision around spatial planning of housing, and they wouldn't even consider allowing people build a house wherever they want. It's only elements the powerful (and landowning) rural lobby in Irish political life that apparently knows different.


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    #39
    danbohan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,914 ✭✭✭danbohan


    ForiegnNational wrote: »
    Firstly, danbohan, as a fellow rural "one-off" house dweller, can I say you are showing a complete lack of any credibility in any of your postings.

    The Town vs Countryside argument is obvious in the arguments...

    For the town dwellers, the concept of having to put in your own well and water treatment system and receiving your TV via Satellite and Broadband via radio seem alien to you as you are living in the "wired/piped" world. We do have to live "off-grid" with the exception of telephone and electricity, which ARE paid for by the builder of a new house and are not shared across everybody.

    For countryside dwellers like danbohan, of course once off development MUST stop. It is an absolute blight on the countryside, where every gombeen of a farmer has the "right" to build three god awful houses on their land, just because they happen to be born first and were therefore given the land by their parents (for FARMING not SELLING I will hasten to add).

    Yes the UK has incredibly tight planning permission, why do you think that every stone barn in the countryside is now converted and the only "new developments" you see are clustered in villages and are therefore attached to sustainable infrastructure.

    France is slightly different as the countryside is becoming denuded of people moving to cities for work. This has lead to the second home phenomena, where most of rural France is owned by Irish/English citizens.

    Germany again (in the bits I know) does not have random one-off dwellings everywhere. New developments are clustered.

    Are you saying that once again Ireland has found some magic formula, just like the housing boom, that lets us ignore what the rest of Europe has learned the hard way?
    For countryside dwellers like danbohan, of course once off development MUST stop

    you say you live in a one off developement in countryside ? , are you willing to give it up? probably not nor am i , but you are very willing to not give that privilage to other people in the future , you suffer from i am alright jack syndrome now rest of you just fjuk off .one off housing has a place in the developement of the country same as any other building , it must be controlled and regulated but it must not be stopped .you may well live in the countryside but you are very much an alien to it as your attidude shows ,this is ireland not cornwall


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    #40
    ForiegnNational
    Registered Users Posts: 135 ✭✭ForiegnNational


    danbohan wrote: »
    you say you live in a one off developement in countryside ? , are you willing to give it up? probably not nor am i , but you are very willing to not give that privilage to other people in the future , you suffer from i am alright jack syndrome now rest of you just fjuk off .one off housing has a place in the developement of the country same as any other building , it must be controlled and regulated but it must not be stopped .you may well live in the countryside but you are very much an alien to it as your attidude shows ,this is ireland not cornwall

    No danbohan, this is not an I'm alright jack, f* you all...

    The property I live in is in the middle of West Cork, was built in the 1970's by a relative and benefits from all of the space and fresh air I can dream of.

    However, I have also done everything I can to reduce the carbon footprint of owning such a wasteful property. The internal garage is gone (huge cold soak to the rest of the house), the walls are double insulated, the attic triple. We have energy saving bl**dy everything (apart from my WIFI which I stated was a fundamental human right).

    I am not a rabid green (see other postings to confirm this). I was born and raised in the countryside (I'm a farmers son FFS), but have lived in some of the worlds largest cities. So I know exactly what I have given up in amenities to give my children the quality of life they have (for the previous poster who said there was nothing to do in the countryside, I would like to show him the active GAA, Rugby, Scouts and evening activities that even children living in the middle of cities would be envious of).

    I am however a realist. I presume you have some ability to filter out the absolute scourge that once-off housing is having on the countryside. How many of these one off houses do all they possibly can to both minimalise their visual and environmental impacts?

    Do you not drive around the countryside when you are home seeing the blight that the ability to build god awful bungalows (1980's), or 3000 sq ft mansions (2000's) has done to the country?

    Danbohan, you my friend are unfortunately taking the side of the gombeenism and ignorance that is too rife in the country. The same attitude that when related to Bankers/Developers, you sound like you would be one of the most vocal and vociferous critics!


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    #41
    danbohan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,914 ✭✭✭danbohan


    ForiegnNational wrote: »
    No danbohan, this is not an I'm alright jack, f* you all...

    The property I live in is in the middle of West Cork, was built in the 1970's by a relative and benefits from all of the space and fresh air I can dream of.

    However, I have also done everything I can to reduce the carbon footprint of owning such a wasteful property. The internal garage is gone (huge cold soak to the rest of the house), the walls are double insulated, the attic triple. We have energy saving bl**dy everything (apart from my WIFI which I stated was a fundamental human right).

    I am not a rabid green (see other postings to confirm this). I was born and raised in the countryside (I'm a farmers son FFS), but have lived in some of the worlds largest cities. So I know exactly what I have given up in amenities to give my children the quality of life they have (for the previous poster who said there was nothing to do in the countryside, I would like to show him the active GAA, Rugby, Scouts and evening activities that even children living in the middle of cities would be envious of).

    I am however a realist. I presume you have some ability to filter out the absolute scourge that once-off housing is having on the countryside. How many of these one off houses do all they possibly can to both minimalise their visual and environmental impacts?

    Do you not drive around the countryside when you are home seeing the blight that the ability to build god awful bungalows (1980's), or 3000 sq ft mansions (2000's) has done to the country?

    Danbohan, you my friend are unfortunately taking the side of the gombeenism and ignorance that is too rife in the country. The same attitude that when related to Bankers/Developers, you sound like you would be one of the most vocal and vociferous critics!

    gombeenism and ignorance is a green rant , my intreast is in the survival of rural way of life not as a plaything for weekend urbanites or green wellied brigade wanting to play at countryside squires wonder which of the two cattergories you fall in to , both maybe . you want take a drive through rural northern ireland , have a look at rural housing and see what bringing forighn concept of rural dwelling does to a countryside and what restrictive planning can create , yes their is a lot of hideous planning and one off houses here in the countryside and a lot of hideous housing and apartment blocks in towns and villages too , you can however if all of this bothers you so much bugger off back to blighty!


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    #42
    Stonewolf
    Registered Users Posts: 1,132 ✭✭✭Stonewolf


    Aidan1 wrote: »
    There we disagree. Their 'right' to live in the middle of no where (there is no such 'right' btw) conveys a significant short term cost on everyone else in the State, and an even more significant long term cost in terms of lost potential and opportunity cost.

    If they are willing to pay the full economic cost of schools, postal service, telecoms, electricity provision, fines for missing water quality standards, transport (as in the full economic cost of having a public road to their front door, and pay for their own transport fuel when oil hits $200 dollars per barrel), broadcasting, social services, health services, and lost revenue from tourism due to landscape damage (oh, and social welfare payments for the new unemployed who can't afford to work because they live too far from anywhere that is capable of generating employment) for their one off dwelling, then maybe, but I doubt it.

    Like ForeignNational points out, across most of Europe new one off rural dwellings are effectively out of the question for all of the reasons listed above. Decades of experience has informed their decision around spatial planning of housing, and they wouldn't even consider allowing people build a house wherever they want. It's only elements the powerful (and landowning) rural lobby in Irish political life that apparently knows different.

    Well, from your response, you seem to have read some of my posts but concentrated on one or two words out of context and not actually understood the arguments being made. You should also go back to that list you made and read over it, because some of those things are borne fully and always will be by residents (like transport fuel costs!).

    We live in a democracy that values freedom and ownership. If someone wants to build a house, on thier land, in the middle of nowhere why should they be told absolutely no-way, no-how? Our government is supposedly there to serve the peoples interests and people want houses in the country for whatever reason. The key is not to have a Daily Mail kneejerk reaction and ban all rural development because that's against the principles of our society, nor does demanding that all development be linked to the land because it doesn't stop a farmer building a house on his own land and selling it.

    Now the fact is that I agree with the argument that once off houses are a blight on our countryside and a drain on our resources, the answer however is not to rant and rave about it but to come up with a solution. A solution that balances the need to protect our countryside and reduce the heavy cost of provision for once off houses whilst at the same time improving the quality of country development and allowing people to still locate their house in a rural area. Clustering is one such solution to that problem, forcing people at gunpoint to live in a tower block in their local village isn't.


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    #43
    ForiegnNational
    Registered Users Posts: 135 ✭✭ForiegnNational


    danbohan wrote: »
    survival of rural way of life

    Since when has selling prime agricultural land to ex townies "surviving the rural way of life"?


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    #44
    paulm17781
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,858 ✭✭✭paulm17781


    ForiegnNational wrote: »
    Since when has selling prime agricultural land to ex townies "surviving the rural way of life"?

    Why are you bothering? DanBohan represents everything I hate about this country, totally selfish and fixated on an unsustainable model, refusing to even consider the problems that the likes of he raises.


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    #45
    Aidan1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 624 ✭✭✭Aidan1


    Since when has selling prime agricultural land to ex townies "surviving the rural way of life"?

    Since about 1977-8, when the 5 year holiday after accession to the EU and CAP ended.
    Well, from your response, you seem to have read some of my posts but concentrated on one or two words out of context and not actually understood the arguments being made

    Nope, I fully understand the arguments being made, I just happen to disagree fundamentally with them - I was just being polite. Clustering certainly works, and humanity has long since evolved a social, political and economic logic around that. It's called 'the town' (or 'village', or 'city'). Simply clustering two or three houses adds nothing in terms of the economies of scale involved. You still have all of the problems around infrastructure and service provision -all you've done is decreased the marginal cost very slightly. It's not a solution, it's not even a way of avoiding the problem, it's probably best described as an excuse.

    Also, a reference to a 'tower block' in a rural village is remarkably pointless, trite and reveals an element of the "all urban=Ballymun/heroin/depravity/crime/single mother" meme that runs through the background of much of the one off rural housing argument. For the record, not everyone who lives in an urban area is a degenerate drug taking mess, in much the same way as not every rural dweller is a paragon of moral virtue.

    On the transport fuel issue, my comments were made in reference to the refrain from rural based politicans and lobby groups that increases in fuel prices hurt rural communities more because they are 'forced to drive for 40 or 50 miles a day to their place of work'. In 2008 when oil prices spiked, there were even calls from rural TDs for a subsidy or tax relief for rural areas to cover this. What happens when diesel is at €3 per litre? Those who live in the middle of nowhere will see their costs increase dramatically (for everything - not just moving themselves around), and then the 'special case' pleading will start again. We could circumvent this, and an element of our huge reliance on imported fossil fuels, by simply planning better, both on a regional basis and on a national basis.


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    #46
    Jayuu
    Registered Users Posts: 740 ✭✭✭Jayuu


    danbohan wrote: »
    i think thats best exlempified here by the urbanites in the 3 bed carboard semis who cannot afford or cope with living in the countryside and are extreamly jealous of those of us who do .

    One would think that if we "urbanites" were jealous of those of you who live in the countryside we would be clamouring for the rules to be eased so that we could build out palatial country mansions. And yet the opposite seems true. Its we "urbanites" who are saying that this shouldn't happen.

    Think you've kind of undermined your own argument here.


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    #47
    danbohan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,914 ✭✭✭danbohan


    ForiegnNational wrote: »
    Since when has selling prime agricultural land to ex townies "surviving the rural way of life"?

    i dont sell land to townies , i sold very nice one off houses to them and all them are now happily living in gorgeous negative equity , thanks to some very very good and helpfull politicians i managed to get 14 houses from a few little fields . still have few fields left waiting for next boom whenever that comes along and building will continuie in the countryside despite objections from people who have no history, knowledge ,or sense of place !

    Don't insult other posters. Infracted. [/Mod]


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    #48
    danbohan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,914 ✭✭✭danbohan


    Jayuu wrote: »
    One would think that if we "urbanites" were jealous of those of you who live in the countryside we would be clamouring for the rules to be eased so that we could build out palatial country mansions. And yet the opposite seems true. Its we "urbanites" who are saying that this shouldn't happen.

    Think you've kind of undermined your own argument here.


    because you know you cant cope , your like bees outside a hive


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    #49
    ForiegnNational
    Registered Users Posts: 135 ✭✭ForiegnNational


    Aidan1 wrote: »
    Since about 1977-8, when the 5 year holiday after accession to the EU and CAP ended.

    Your right other than REPS payments, why would you keep arable land when you could sell 1/3 of an acre to a townie/foreign national for the best part of a third of a million?

    Why would any farmer want to farm anything other than building sites?

    Perhaps you have hit a certain nail on the head! Subsidy Farming vs Planning Permission Farming...


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    #50
    ForiegnNational
    Registered Users Posts: 135 ✭✭ForiegnNational


    danbohan wrote: »
    i dont sell land to townies , i sold very nice one off houses to them and all them are now happily living in gorgeous negative equity

    As I said before, I am no green, but I am educated and aware of the impact that such attitudes have on the country as a whole.

    I feel no jealousy towards you farming building sites (I readily admit you will have made far more money than actually turning the sod), but don't try and use and empty argument such as "Survival of the rural environment" when you happily admit turning this very environment into one of your despised urban areas?

    Oh, and by the way, if you didn't realise it, there never will be another property boom like this one. I am glad to say therefore that the rest of whatever is left of your fathers farm that you didn't sell off, will happily stay arable until well after you are under it!


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    #51
    danbohan
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,914 ✭✭✭danbohan


    ForiegnNational wrote: »
    As I said before, I am no green, but I am educated and aware of the impact that such attitudes have on the country as a whole.

    I feel no jealousy towards you farming building sites (I readily admit you will have made far more money than actually turning the sod), but don't try and use and empty argument such as "Survival of the rural environment" when you happily admit turning this very environment into one of your despised urban areas?

    Oh, and by the way, if you didn't realise it, there never will be another property boom like this one. I am glad to say therefore that the rest of whatever is left of your fathers farm that you didn't sell off, will happily stay arable until well after you are under it!


    not my fathers farm , little bit i bought , i know the type that play at farming in this country , luckily we have a very benevolent social welfare system to make up for their mistakes


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    #52
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,707 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    danbohan wrote: »
    sign of a deeply immature and shallow society

    i think thats best exlempified here by the urbanites in the 3 bed carboard semis who cannot afford or cope with living in the countryside and are extreamly jealous of those of us who do .

    Cannot afford? The price of a "3 bed cardboard semi" now would get you a rather large, shoddily built one off house with a dodgy biocycle system that'll eventually back up and cover the garden in human effluent, a polluted group water supply scheme, no broadband and unreliable electricity multiple miles outside any given regional town.

    Cope? Well, yes, there is a certain level of coping to living in utter isolation...


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    #53
    Danno
    Registered Users Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    One-off housing is a disease of Ireland.

    We should aim to consolidate our small rural towns and villages, improve services within them and transport links between them.

    Councils who want to zone land for housing should be given powers to compulsory purchase the land - and the rate of payment should be universal across the state.

    Councils would not be allowed to CPO land for development on town boundaries if more suitable land within the town/village exists. This would promote infill as opposed to developments/housing stretching out along link roads... ala Mountmellick Rd, Portlaoise.

    Before any house is allowed to be built, a basket of "to the kerb" services must be in place first... Power, Water, Sewerage, Telecoms, Broadband etc... The infrastructure for these shall be borne by council.

    To recoup these investments by Councils, a yearly property tax shall be collected from any house/development built. This tax may never increase more than the rate of inflation, and in times of deflation must also follow suit.

    Councils selling sites should be forced to advertise the yearly tax rate per square metre of the site. Potential site buyers can put distance between themselves and neighbours by buying a larger site but making up for space wastage in their yearly tax.

    All R and N roads should be forbidden from development alongside them outside the 50kpmh zones. All current 50kmph zones should not be expanded further out along these routes as it only encourages development.

    A new law should be also passed to force landowners along ALL routes to give up a strip of road frontage for the provisions of hard shoulders. L routes should have defined cycle and footpaths. If this means removing hedgerows, so be it... plant them back in afterwards.


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    #54
    Danno
    Registered Users Posts: 8,913 ✭✭✭Danno


    Oh, and to add to the above, Planners should be hired by the state to serve their county. Therefore avoiding conflict of interests. Also, a Laois planner cannot serve Laois, must be another county etc... Councils looking to zone land must have it signed off/approved by their relative planner.


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    #55
    Wild Bill
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 3,129 ✭✭✭Wild Bill


    Hmmmm. It seems to me there is a bit of flaming going on here! :D

    I'd say "one-off-houses" and new private entrances are two separate issues which are getting conflated here.

    One off houses along N-roads is such a daft idea you must wonder if Gormley has taken leave of his senses.

    I have a more open view of one-offs in the countryside and despise the knee-jerk "if they do it in England it must be the civilised thing" reaction.

    If I was the King of Ireland there is one thing I'd insist on: folk buying one-offs would be shot on the spot if they then went on to demand that the State supply urban standards of transport, services, schooling, jobs or any of the other things those living in towns and cities get as a trade-off for not living on their own little acres. :cool:


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    #56
    Sponge Bob
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 25,234 ✭✭✭✭Sponge Bob


    Wild Bill wrote: »
    One off houses along N-roads is such a daft idea you must wonder if Gormley has taken leave of his senses.

    He hasn't quite. While appearing to concede narrowly on the one off issue Gormley will make planning permission much more difficult overall. One Off houses will normally require an "Appropriate Assessment" study be carried out from 1 July in most of rural Ireland. By conceding the possibility of an entrance onto an N or R road the "Appropriate Assessment" process will require a traffic study as well. Traffic studies would not be required on L roads, particularly L secondaries and tertiary that go nowhere.

    Therefore you will have to spend €1500 on an 'eco consultant' to do the "Appropriate Assessment" ...and best ensure they are An Taisce members with membership card to avoid that lot causing problems down the line. You will notcie that many of these 'eco' chancers are paid up members of An Taisce :D . Then you will need to spend €1500 on a traffic engineer to produce that particular report as part of the planning application.

    Now you are ready to employ a normal Civil Engineer to plan the house itself and wastewater treatment to satisfy the modern EPA guidelines. I should think that €5,000 will henceforth be spend before the application is even submitted.....not counting Further Information requests during the planning process which may incur further costs.

    That is what Gormley is really up to :cool: Building an onerous cost stack for country people to level the playing field with villages full of ghost estates.


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    #57
    Stonewolf
    Registered Users Posts: 1,132 ✭✭✭Stonewolf


    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    An Taisce

    Now if evere there's a group that deserved to go against the wall this is surely it.


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    #58
    spacetweek
    Moderators, Science, Health & Environment Moderators Posts: 4,957 Mod ✭✭✭✭spacetweek


    Sponge Bob wrote: »
    He hasn't quite. While appearing to concede narrowly on the one off issue Gormley will make planning permission much more difficult overall. One Off houses will normally require an "Appropriate Assessment" study be carried out from 1 July in most of rural Ireland. By conceding the possibility of an entrance onto an N or R road the "Appropriate Assessment" process will require a traffic study as well. Traffic studies would not be required on L roads, particularly L secondaries and tertiary that go nowhere.

    Therefore you will have to spend €1500 on an 'eco consultant' to do the "Appropriate Assessment" ...and best ensure they are An Taisce members with membership card to avoid that lot causing problems down the line. You will notcie that many of these 'eco' chancers are paid up members of An Taisce :D . Then you will need to spend €1500 on a traffic engineer to produce that particular report as part of the planning application.

    Now you are ready to employ a normal Civil Engineer to plan the house itself and wastewater treatment to satisfy the modern EPA guidelines. I should think that €5,000 will henceforth be spend before the application is even submitted.....not counting Further Information requests during the planning process which may incur further costs.

    That is what Gormley is really up to :cool: Building an onerous cost stack for country people to level the playing field with villages full of ghost estates.
    I really hope you're right - there are numerous reasons not to allow one-offs, but if it's gonna be septic tanks that serve as the straw that breaks the camel's back, then so be it.

    Rural life and housing needs can be easily met by simply requiring that all new houses are adjacent to an existing town or village. Nothing is allowed anywhere else nor does it need to be. Your house will still be a one-off in a garden or even a small field, and it'll look exactly how you want it, but you'll be within walking distance of all your services and connection distance of infrastructure.

    Problems solved by this:
    - No drink driving home from a pub
    - No need to get an expensive taxi home from the pub
    - Not getting hit by a car while staggering the long journey home from the pub
    - Kids can walk to school - that's good for them
    - Can walk to shops
    - Halts exodus of people and commerce from rural towns - rejuvenates them
    - Cheap connection to ESB
    - Connection to sewerage scheme sidesteps any probs with water quality
    - Better mobile phone reception
    - Broadband available/faster speeds available
    - No need for council to undertake expensive road upgrades for miles
    - Council only need to provide small amount of footpaths
    - Puts paid to greedy huckster farmers who "grow" houses as a cash crop - returns rural areas to farming and other suitable activities

    Problems caused by this:
    - Greedy people will no longer be able to act like selfish d!cks and get rich off land that should be used for farming - oh, wait.


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    #59
    Cool Mo D
    Registered Users Posts: 1,419 ✭✭✭Cool Mo D


    Personally, I think a very simple law would solve almost all one-off housing related issues, and still allow anyone to live where they grew up.

    Tie planning permission to the builder, rather then the house.

    As long as you have owned a site for over 10 years, you can build a house on it. The catch would be that only you, or an immediate relative could live in the house after that. If you decide to sell the land, the house would have to be demolished. You could pass the house to your spouse or child without a problem, but no-one else could have it. If there is no-one eligible to live in the house, it must also be demolished.

    The law would apply in sensitive areas, where normally planning would be difficult to get. It would allow families to live on family land, but would stop urban dwellers moving to the country to add traffic to the roads, use up valuable farmland, and ruin the look of the countryside.


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    #60
    KevR
    Registered Users Posts: 3,110 ✭✭✭KevR


    http://www.galwaynews.ie/14465-nra-confirms-no-future-role-planning-applications-along-old-n6
    Galway News wrote:
    NRA CONFIRMS NO FUTURE ROLE IN PLANNING APPLICATIONS ALONG OLD N6

    August 16, 2010 - 9:10am
    People who have applied for planning permission for one-off houses along the route of the old N6, should get the go ahead for their developments.

    That's according to Galway East T.D. Paul Connaughton, who says that the National Roads Authority now says the old N6 is no longer a national road.

    This means the NRA has no role in relation to planning permission concerning access to the N6.

    I really do despair if this is going to mean more direct access points onto the R446.

    Then again, the number of fatalities on our roads has fallen too much in recent years so we urgently need some more dangerous access points on high speed single carriageway roads to try and reverse this silly trend. :rolleyes:


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    #61
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    KevR wrote: »
    http://www.galwaynews.ie/14465-nra-confirms-no-future-role-planning-applications-along-old-n6


    I really do despair if this is going to mean more direct access points onto the R446.

    Then again, the number of fatalities on our roads has fallen too much in recent years so we urgently need some more dangerous access points on high speed single carriageway roads to try and reverse this silly trend. :rolleyes:
    I wouldn't worry about it, there's nothing to stop any Joe soap from objecting on the grounds of road safety.

    Anyway, such applications are likely to be quite rare for the foreseeable future.


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