Surprise at pre-planning meeting

As noodle said talk to someone else more who does planning applications ( arch or eng)
A pre planning meeting can be a complete waste of time as the person you are talking to may not be able to give you the correct info. If they are not dealing direct with the case the other planner may have different views. Dont take what they say as gospel
 
noodle said:
A suggestion as your going to live next door to your parents is to say that you will talk care of them as they get older - therefore providing a 'local' service.
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I stated this when I looked for the pre-planning meeting.

SInce the pre-planning meeting I have written again to the council outlining my connection with the area since birth. I included the fact that my parents are elderly and the fact that it is a rural area so mentioned crime etc.

At this stage I'm starting to regret having a pre-planning meeting as all my cards are now on the table. I was going to go for outline permission but you need a percolation test even for that and it can cost €1k - €1.5k. I suppose I really should have contacted a "professional" to see what lies I should tell. I mistakenly assumed that honesty was the best policy.

But is this really what it takes nowadays to get planning permission in this fair country of ours? Sob-stories for the little people and brown envelopes for the bigger fish.

Thanks again for all the info. Feeling really frustrated that I cannot build a house on land that will probably one day be mine.

Sorry for the rant :)
 
Don't give up - if this is your dream don't let the planners take it from you. Try your local councillors, and don't have scruples about doing so. The planners work at a remove, and make judgements based on theory. Your councillor is local and has a better idea of the needs of a locality and it's inhabitants.
Your parents need you, and you should be able to 'come home'. Where will the planners be when your parents need care in the future?

I submitted plans for full PP, did the perc. test and after one refusal resubmitted slightly different plans and got it. Initial refusal was that it was ' not vernacular architecture ' and that my windows were too big. My site is next to a derelict house, and they told me I should copy that style as it is a very old house. I kid you not. Given that I am surrounded by 1970s bungalows, and next door is due for demolition and my windows were lovely wooden sash windows I decided to take the planners out of the loop.
Go for it and good luck.
 
With planning they will try to put you off at any turn..........you need to be able to fight them on every detail................
download a copy of the county development plan & read it , highlight any arguments from it in support of your case.
It is disappointing that by being honest you are shooting yourself in the foot - if you had applied as living in your parents house then there would prob not be any problem...........
how far away is your current house? If it is a sufficient distance then you could argue on the basis of wanting to move back to local area etc?
 
You need to look again at the Settlement Strategy contained in the County Development . There's a fair bit of reading in it but jot down the bits and pieces that apply to you.

You will need to identify (from the devp. plan) what type of rural area your site is in (i.e. urban or rural housing generated area) and see the Council's policies in relation to these areas. They should all be available on a map that is in the devp. plan.

Never tell lies to the planners as its unfair and misleading to say the least and will most likely get you PP ;)
 
Do not give up, as been already said the planners will not make it easy but if you perservere you will get your planning permission. Get a eningeer they know the ins and outs and are worth the money
 
a friend of mine got planning on land he inherited just recently.
he works and rents a flat in limerick but is originally from longford.
he got letters from two local councillors, a letter from his primary school teacher and a letter from the secondary school he attended and sent them to the council as supporting information for his application. in total, it has taken just under a year for him to get through the system and he also got planning for a house that is not similar to neighbouring houses. i suppose as he has never owned a house then this helped plus he owned the land which he inherited a couple of years ago. he is young and unmarried but has said he wants to move back to marry his girlfriend and start a family and away he sailed !
i myself am moving back from london to longford in 3 years time. my dad applied for the planning and then passed it to me. he was advised this was the best way forward to get me the planning. once he received the planning, we then transferred the site into my name only. this also took over a year, he showed that there had been an old house on the site demolished about 35 years ago but the house was of historic interest so he should not have demolised it at the time but got away with it as it was a waste of agricultural land at the time. we also had to employ an archaeologist before we got the go ahead (another 500 euros !) and i am pretty certain local councillors were involved too to support his case. my father has his own farmhouse with a grown up family and lives on his own so still managed to get planning even though in theory he didn't need a new house. the house we are building cannot be sold for seven years i think but we are not planning on selling but doesn't matter but i believe there are loopholes in this as well !
 
I have heard of people getting planning in local needs areas using the elderly parents side of things to their advantage. As in, my parents are in their 70's, bad health, shaky on their feet, and will move into my new house so that i can care for them - and look, here's a wheelchair accesible bedroom & bathroom on the ground floor of my proposed house. Might be worth a try!
 
Thanks again for all the advice and good wishes.

Nuttynut propmted me to go back again to the development plan and have another read and I found some good grounds for my case.

The site is an area of Strong Agricultural base and policy SP25 states that "It is the policy of the Council to permit single housing in areas with a Strong Agricultural base where any of the following criteria are met:"

It then lists 5 criteria of which I meet TWO i.e.

(a) the application is being made by a long term landowner or his/her family and house is for own use etc etc

(d) the application is being made by a local rural person who for family and/or work reasons wish to live in the area in which they have spent a substantial period of their lives. This also applies to persons who have left the rural area and now wish to reside in the place they grew up in"

Obviously I fit these criteria perfectly. It verifies what I thought was the case but was unaware of where to find it.

What puzzles me is why the planner did not mention any of these criteria when I had the pre-planning meeting. She kept on saying that I had no "need" as I already had a house.

Does the "need" criteria override all other criteria?. Or was she just trying to put me off?

As mentioned earlier, I have written to her again but have not heard back yet.

I'm hoping that I will get another meeting and this new information will greatly add to my war chest.

At this stage I probably will now engage an architect/engineer and look for full planning.

Any idea of the costs of said "experts" to draw up plans etc?
 
Stick with it podge, you should get it from what you say. I, like you, had a house in a neighbouring county and got planning on family land back home two years ago. Do like others said and write a letter quoting the development plan and explaing how you consider yourself to meet the criteria set down. Get letters from local priest/garda/teacher etc stating that you are originally from the area and include them as backup/proof of you claims. I included all this in the planning application and never had a problem.

Best of luck with it.
 
Podge .... Think of it this way. If planning permission was easy to get, everybody would be doing it. Hence the reason that the planners will more than likely give you a hard time at a pre planning meeting. In my opinion, to stop people speculatively applying for planning just for financial gain, planners take the hardline approach at such meetings to try and turn people off the idea or put the mockers on them like they have done with you. From reading what you have divulged about your circumstances, I think you can put forward a fairly convincing case but it will probably still take a lot of sleepless nights before you get what your are looking for.
 
Squire said:
I, like you, had a house in a neighbouring county and got planning on family land back home two years ago. Do like others said and write a letter quoting the development plan and explaing how you consider yourself to meet the criteria set down. Get letters from local priest/garda/teacher etc stating that you are originally from the area and include them as backup/proof of you claims. I included all this in the planning application and never had a problem.

Best of luck with it.
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Hi Squire

Did you a own a house when you looked for planning?

This seems to be the nub of the problem with me - i.e. I have a house so I have no "need".
 
Yes Podge, I owned a house in Laois and was looking for planning in Kildare.

A lot of people (giving unsolicited advice :rolleyes: ) had said that if you own a house you will not get planning on your own land but AFAIK this is rubbish.

I will PM you a copy of the letter I sent to the County Planner to show how I met the local needs. Owning a house never arose as a problem.
 
There was a document by Dick Roche last year sometime which if memory serves correctly attempted to relax the rules on one-off houses in rural locations, especially when the applicant had some ties to the area. I had a quick look in http://www.environ.ie (www.environ.ie) but couldn't track it down. If you can find it there may be some other ideas which could help.
 
ennisjim said:
There was a document by Dick Roche last year sometime which if memory serves correctly attempted to relax the rules on one-off houses in rural locations, especially when the applicant had some ties to the area. I had a quick look in http://www.environ.ie (www.environ.ie) but couldn't track it down. If you can find it there may be some other ideas which could help.
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Would this be it?
 
That's the one. Not sure if it's of any use but probably worth the read anyway. I don't know if CoCo's are supposed to take this document into account but I would have thought it would have some weight.
 
The Donegal County Development Plan incorporates this:

The Planning Authority supports the Minister of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines in conjunction with the National Spatial Strategy’s objective that states that every individual in rural areas will be given the opportunity to live on a permanent basis in the area in which they were born or raised, and/or who are part of and contribute to the rural community.

I would imagine that all local authorities would have the same policy
 
Thanks once again for all the help and advice.

I have been in contact with the Planning Office again today. You may recall that earlier in the thread I said that I submitted another letter after the pre-planning meeting.

I had a telephone conversion with the pre-planner today and was informed that "it may be worth my while to look for planning". I was also told that no concrete decision coiuld be given until planning had been applied for etc etc.

While I'm still not certain of anything I think I will now look for full planning :D
 
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