Planning in Cork – Retention

@sprockets wrote:

If anyone has any experience of a similar situation or could give me the name of a consultant or architect who would have experience in this area and could advise me that would be great.

Maybe ask Michael McDowell? 🙂 (He had a similar problem with his holiday house, though he went too far down.)

This is not my professional opinion (what can I say- you got me on a good day), but the chances of getting caught are probably slim, even allowing for Cork Co Co being one of the better rural Co Cos. If you ask them for permission, they might get shirty as they refused in the first instance. Retention on completion could be the best option- certainly better than changing the design mid-build.

Alternatively, being up front from the outset might benefit your case in the long run, especially as ridge height is a key concern of many rural Co Cos- visual intrusion and all that. I’d guess the higher the building, the greater are the chances of getting found out and punished.

Much of this depends on how closely your neighbours are watching. 😉 Tough call, really.

Also, you’re presuming that Cork Co Co planners don’t read this site…

Thanks a million for the advice….very much appreciated.
Anyone else with anything to add ………
the more info the better….makes the decision less of a strain…….

Im almost 99% sure that my neighbours house is higher than on her planning application…
the pitch of the roof is definitly greater than on the drawings…. so maybe they wont mind.
my house because of the difference in level between my site and theres will still
be lower then there house.

Careful with the roof pitch Sprockets – Is the house a bungalow or a dormer. If its the latter, by changing the roof pitch you will impact upon the headroom which is a building regulations issue and there’s no grey area there you either comply or you don’t. Also how was the floor level of the house conditioned in the planning permission in the first place ? Is it possible to pin down the exact levels to a bench mark or datum on the site ?
You might be surprised if you go back and check this unless your original site survey was extremely accurate.

well the house is a bungalow but I have allowed room to covert upstairs at a later date, but this planning application is concerned with a bungalow. I was intending to apply for a conversion upstairs at a later date.

so do you think I should leave the pitch at 40 and go for retention later on?
or change it to 35 and go for retention later on?

The levels I took first day and which were shown on the site layout were way out from actual levels on site.
I took a datum point on road (not a fixed datum) took a level on site for existing ground level and then worked out what finished floor level would be, these were shown on the drawing.
This was done at planning application stage and it was not until we started excavation and re did the levels that I realised that my existing ground level was way too high (+850mm).

Im not a architect or civil engineer so Im not sure what you mean by bench mark, do you mean that it might be down to interpretation of where the level was taken from if there is no benchmark to compare it to? .
I assume that if it came to it the council could work out the levels from my neighbours site as opposed to mine if needs be.

Yes. If someone decided to check the levels on the ground versus what was on the planning drawings, they would need a definite point on the ground shown with a level assigned to it, which in turn related to the floor level on the drawings. Same goes for checking it from your neighbours floor level – you would need to have shown a floor level for their house on your drawing, which related to your proposed floor level. There is a chance that if you made an error of 850mm transferring the level up from the road, that even if you showed a floor level on your neighbours house that this is out by the same amount. A lot depends on the amount of detail shown on your survey. On the roof pitch issue, if you want to convert the attic at a later stage you need to look at what accommodation you want to have in this conversion. Anything that is a habitable room or a bathroom will need to 2.4m clear headroom over at least 50% of the floor area of the room measured at 1.5m above the floor level (sounds complicated I know but is really quite simple) See Building Regulations TGD 5 (Ventilation) Page 8.You don’t want to spoil the chance to convert the attice by reducing the roof pitch too far.

Thats great JB,, thanks very much for your help, you really know your stuff. There is actually a good fall on the road that I used for my datum point. I will check tommorow to see just how much of a fall tomorrow. I think if l were to go a meter or more up the hill I could gain back some of the 850mm. Perhaps if I created and marked a more suitable datum point and used this for any future levels. Do you think this is a good idea?

And I will re work the roof with the new pitch tommorow to see what kind of habitable accomadation I would have up stairs if l were to convert. Im pretty certain that with the width of the house that even if l change the pitch to 35 or 37, I will still have a good deal of headroom and good size rooms upstairs. Thanks again for your help.

Between the two you’ll probably get back a lot of the 850mm, and in any case, as has already been said it depends very much how clsoely anyone is looking. Hope it all works out.

Thank for all the info everyone,,, its been very helpful…
If anyone has any more to add that would be great…

Think about what would happen if you need finance or when you go to sell the property eventually. You will need various certificates of compliance, without which a sale probably would fall through…
KB2