Problems Getting planning permission

When the local authority refuses permission they are supposed to clearly state the reason why permission has been refused, On what basis are they refusing permission?
 
I have been through this in a rural housing control zone. No, the planners are not obliged to give planning permission on land owned by the applicant or applicant's family. An application is made stronger if you have strong ties to agriculture, to the area, having a community related job and your own housing need etc.
But there are other factors that the planners consider such as the development plan for the area, a reluctance to allow further housing prolonging ribbon development and many others.
As the original poster said, your refused application will outline the reasons and then the only course of action, if the reason is not insurmountable, is to try and discuss these with the planner for your area to see if you can amend your plans in any way.
 
TrishaPower said:
Is there anybody that knows if there is any legalities on if the council have to give you planning on your own land or not?
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If they had to give planning on your own land, nobody would ever have a problem getting planning.

If they raised queries/problems re the percolation area did you talk to them about what steps they feel would remedy the situation? There are lots of options out there for land which fails percolation tests, given that yours passed (did the architect have full tests done?) it shouldn't be too difficult to get a work around.

As for moving the house closer/further from the road, it all depends on the reasons for the relocation. Your brother may have been asked to move it closer to a road so that it wasn't an eyesoar to other locations/properties in its original location. You may have been asked to move yours further away for similiar reasons or for any number of other reasons (e.g. safety reasons if property too close to the road etc.). Again, talk to the planners and get detailed information of why the requested relocation and what steps can/could be taken to comply.

If you look up the details of the local County development plan you may see some of the guidelines for your area and see some of the reasons you may be having trouble first hand.

Edit: Post crossed with MH
 
TrishaPower said:
surely people should be given the right to do what they like on their own land...
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Would you feel the same way if you built your dream house on that land, invested every cent you had into it, I bought the field next to you and decided to build a........

Drug rehab clinic... super hotel and spa.... waste water treatment plant.... airport...
Finish it with whatever would disturb you the most.

The planning guidelines are there to protect our environment, our countryside, our cities and our way of life. We may not always agree with the decisions or the level of clarity, but thinking that giving free reign for anyone to do what they wished with land is certainly not the answer!
 
so the council should not refuse any planning permission for a house if the applicant owns the land? So you would have planning permission scrapped for houses?
 
If you look around the country at the problems of urban sprawl, ribbon developments, loss of unspoilt countryside greenfield areas....
I personally feel they should have that right.

If a tighter control of planning had been in place during the recent boom in development around Dublin we may not have half the problems with traffic we currently have.

Meath, Kildare, Wicklow, etc have all become suburbs of Dublin. We have a city with a footprint the size of LA with a fraction of the population. We have the lowest density capital city in Europe. As a result we struggle to provide a public transport system anywhere near up to the challenge.

If we were to allow people to keep building on every green field outside of Dublin how much worse would this problem get?

I do understand your frustration at not being allowed to build on your dream site as you feel it wouldn't have any serious negative impacts, but the council may feel differently. It may be marked as an area for no development, again, have a look through the local development plan to check.

Given the feedback you've gotten so far, this doesn't seem to be the issue really. If you've taken onboard everything they suggested and they still refused, talk to them again and query exactly what all the issues are. Sometimes a little persistance is worth it!
 
I've known a few people who seemed to get planning permission the third time they applied, so I would suggest trying again.
 
TrishaPower said:
....but I think that in circumstances where the land is owned by the applicants family for years and where they are planning to build a house that will be used for their own use then the planning officers should be more lenient...
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I do understand where you are coming from, it just doesn't work that way in practice.

First of all trying to keep tabs on the development of properties on "family" land would be a huge headache. Families would be able to build the land, agreeing to live in the property for whatever period, then say circumstances mean they "have to" move and seek to sell the property. If the council put in high clawback fees it would be a huge handicap to legitimate cases where a family does "have to" sell.... and if the charges weren't very high you'd have people taking advantage of the system to build a house where planning would not be given and then sell it on for a profit.

Trying to set up special circumstances like this is a nightmare as some cases will always slip through the net and people will feel hard done by while others will slip into the net when they shouldn't.

I do kind-of-ish work in this area (not directly in planning but in a round about way I deal with it often) and I don't think this would problems at all. Putting in special circumstances and other backdoor systems will/would just lead to more problems. To improve the situation what is needed is more clarity with the current system.
Technically, you have a site you should be able to build on (in your opinion at least). If you aren't going to pose a serious eye soar or disturb areas of environmental importance, I would agree that planning should be possible. The only real problem you have is not getting a clear reason for refusal from the authority (or, you did, but when corrected they still refused so obviously the explanation wasn't enough to deal with all the issues).

Something as personal and with as wide implications as planning is never going to gain a 100% civic concensus, so I'm not trying to get you to agree with my thoughts. Just highlighting some of the issues from the other POV to try and help you understand why the decisions may have been made.
 
We are having huge problems with our planning permission also. I think you should continue with it if you think you have been unfairly treated. Maybe to the point of appealing it to An Bord Pleanala??
 
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