Are planning applications harder than giving birth?

It would help if the planners were more qualified… well at least qualified enough to administer some Holles Street happy gas.

No, but you feel just as sore afterwards.

It would help if half the Architects in the country had a clue/were educated in planning – after all it is a 5 year course!!! – plenty of time to have 2/3 years of classes in planning.

Of course most architects think they can do everything anyway- Planning, Urban Design, Interior Design, etc………. which doesnt help.

If a large proportion of Architects actually had a half decent planning head on their shoulders and stopped taking it up the ass from clients (obviously occured a lot more 2 years ago) in relation to rediculous scale and densities, and advised, based on an educated planning background- many many planning applications would not have been in vain……..

Tut Tut – architects pretending to be planning consultants and having no balls to tell a developer that this will not get planning – The Celtic Tiger is dead

😉

how about this for a labour pang;

refused permission – appealed to ABP – received glowing praise from their own assessor and recommended that it should be allowed permission – only to have this decision overruled by the board – its hard being a mammy

Inconsistencies in the planners decisions, sometimes being over ruled by senior planners, directors of services or indeed managers. Local Authorities decisions being overturned by An Bord Pleanala. (and as said above) Inspection Officers recommendations being ignored and over ruled by the Board.

All this makes it very easy to make sweeping statements about Architects and sling mud at the smallest cog in the decision making process.

Sometimes you don’t even give birth it’s a miscarriage…
Then when you get permission to give birth they don’t build it or opt for plastic surgery!

I had a pre-planning meeting yesterday. The planner was an engineer by qualification and kept referring to his list of ‘must do’s’. The process felt a bit like playing dot the dot.

@AMDM wrote:

It would help if half the Architects in the country had a clue/were educated in planning – after all it is a 5 year course!!! – plenty of time to have 2/3 years of classes in planning.

Of course most architects think they can do everything anyway- Planning, Urban Design, Interior Design, etc………. which doesnt help.

If a large proportion of Architects actually had a half decent planning head on their shoulders and stopped taking it up the ass from clients (obviously occured a lot more 2 years ago) in relation to rediculous scale and densities, and advised, based on an educated planning background- many many planning applications would not have been in vain……..

Tut Tut – architects pretending to be planning consultants and having no balls to tell a developer that this will not get planning – The Celtic Tiger is dead

😉

But Architects CAN do everything.

At least they used to when I started out.

During the tiger era it was farmed out to consultants for planning,fire,landscaping etc.

Those days are finished so time to sharpen the pencils and read the development plans and Part B etc.

what about the one dcc grant inspector refuse board approve 🙂
only for special people…

Some developers do the same thing remixed on the same site 3 times and go through the whole process 3 times its worse than torture… I blame variable interest rates and the cost of living…

I have the best one. LA Planner recomended refusal, County Manager overturned their Planning Officer’s recomendation and granted permission. ABP Inspector recomended refusal and the Board went against their recomendation and granted permission.

@Fairfield wrote:

I have the best one. LA Planner recomended refusal, County Manager overturned their Planning Officer’s recomendation and granted permission. ABP Inspector recomended refusal and the Board went against their recomendation and granted permission.

In some particular cases decisions made by either planners or inspectors can be based on purely judicious and bureaucratic factors. While being essentially correct, they may not reflect a social or economic requirement for the development. Its cases such as these that I have seen county managers and ‘The Board’ overturn previous decisions by, essentially, their junior officials.

This works both ways for both grants and refusals.

I think Fire safety certs are harder.

I’ve been waiting on a decision for two weeks now and the officer said he’d have a look at it and get back to me!! :confused:

What’s he been up for the last ten weeks……………

@parka wrote:

I think Fire safety certs are harder.

I’ve been waiting on a decision for two weeks now and the officer said he’d have a look at it and get back to me!! :confused:

What’s he been up for the last ten weeks……………

Not really, if you know the regulations and relevant IS or BS’s and you design your report accordingly then you know the Cert will issue.

Not the case with a Planning Application.

Can anyone out there please tell how many applications were refused in Ireland last year? Is this information publically available & if so where, thanks for your time!

Why do you want to know?

ONQ.

I’m just going to use this thread to vent… I had a pre-planning meeting for a domestic extension a few months back to resolve a few issues I thought could crop up during planning. All was sorted or so I thought… Lo and behold when the application was being examined by the local council a different planner was looking after it than the one I met at pre-planning. What happens but the exact same issues I went out of my way to clarify at the pre-planning meeting arrived in the post today as a further information request. I was fortunate enough to talk to the planner today (after about 10 missed calls, I was feeling particularly vexed!) and he says to me and I quote, ‘Sure pre-planning meetings aren’t worth the paper they’re written on’. The inconsistencies and lack of coordination is maddening!

Can I offer my tuppence worth, BenK?

Planners usually open a file at the pre-planning meeting stage.
I make the point of writing to them listing any contentious matters discussed at the meeting.
I send this note in by letter, e-mail or fax – it doesn’t matter as long as it leaves a permanent record.
Basically this is a minute of the meeting, which some of them hate, and you’ll get little denial notes sent in the post

Typically the pre-planning meeting might just start the ball rolling, which opens the door for more correspondence on file.
Then I revert filling in any gaps in the knowledge base the have identified, such as relevant precedents in the area or whatever.
The point being that all of the issues get dealt with, noted, sent in and are on the file and agreed in principle by the planner on the case.

After few weeks have elapsed, the file is starting to look pretty full, perhaps with a few photos or a survey as well – IOW its not easily dismissed.
That way, planners can change or a new issue can crop up, but I have seldom been requested for more information on an issue that’s been dealt with.

That doesn’t mean an upset can’t happen.
Once, the planner who was all nice as pie to me left to go on a sabbatical for a year.
The next guy was a pain in the proverbial, but the notes and letters I had sent in meant he couldn’t throw out the application.
We didn’t get all that we wanted, but we still got a useful permission, plus my client had been copied with all the correspondence so we didn’t look too lame.

BTW, I’m not being preachy on this – filing and time keeping are my two bugbears. 🙁
I bless the guy who invented modern e-mail clients with decent search facilities.
So easy to send, so easy to search and retrieve information later.
Copying the client means the get to look after their own file.
The difficulty is clients who say they can’t use e-mail!

ONQ.

All valid points ONQ. What was particularly annoying was the fact that I had answered and explained the contentious issues in my covering letter, making reference to the time, date and planner I had met in pre-planning and the items that were covered (I had taken notes at the meeting…) On talking to the planner who dealt with my application it seemed pretty clear he hadn’t even read it. He was actually ok on the phone though and seemed happy enough with my proposals to answer the Further Information which I had in effect answered already!

I think many Further Information requests are triggered by an Observation. Having received documentation from an Observer/Objector, the Planner will request further documentation from the applicant as counter-evidence. They can then point to this evidence in order to support their final decision. Pre-planning meetings and telephone conversations don’t count as evidence, so they aren’t much use.
Having discussed with a Planner the minimal impact that a proposed (mainly) single storey extension would have on adjoining properties, I recently lodged an extension application. On the last day (of course) a neighbour lodged an Observation relating to overshadowing. The Planner requested Further Information. It required 12 shadow diagrams for a small domestic extension. Luckily I lodged it quickly and the Decision to Grant was only delayed by a week.

@BenK wrote:

All valid points ONQ. What was particularly annoying was the fact that I had answered and explained the contentious issues in my covering letter, making reference to the time, date and planner I had met in pre-planning and the items that were covered (I had taken notes at the meeting…) On talking to the planner who dealt with my application it seemed pretty clear he hadn’t even read it. He was actually ok on the phone though and seemed happy enough with my proposals to answer the Further Information which I had in effect answered already!

I may have one better than that, and it happened – again – when a planner went on holiday having asked me a set of questions in a further information request.

I duly lodged the reply covering all the issues and was rewarded in due course with a clarification of further information – with exactly the same wording as the original.

As you can imagine Atelier ONQ was unhappy with this turn of events and by the end of the week the faux pas was known in the highest levels of the authority and a permission was eventually dispatched – not without fallout for us.

That was an unusual situation, involving sheltered housing, and approval from the Housing Officer and a reluctant client liaison [which we only found out later and was the proximate cause of the faux pas].

If someone had simply rung us to discuss the matter we -or our client – could have sorted it out.

ONQ.

@Tayto wrote:

I think many Further Information requests are triggered by an Observation. Having received documentation from an Observer/Objector, the Planner will request further documentation from the applicant as counter-evidence. They can then point to this evidence in order to support their final decision. Pre-planning meetings and telephone conversations don’t count as evidence, so they aren’t much use.
Having discussed with a Planner the minimal impact that a proposed (mainly) single storey extension would have on adjoining properties, I recently lodged an extension application. On the last day (of course) a neighbour lodged an Observation relating to overshadowing. The Planner requested Further Information. It required 12 shadow diagrams for a small domestic extension. Luckily I lodged it quickly and the Decision to Grant was only delayed by a week.

I suppose they have a bit of time on their hands now, but 12 shadow diagrams sounds like overkill.
Was this called for under the development plan requirements or was it under the BER standard?

I see more and more of these sun diagrams are creeping into applications.
There is a collision course being set here, because the planners all take the view that the high amenity private open space is that space just outside the back door.
Or course this space is also where you can build the exempted development schedule extensions, 12 sqm on 1st floor for a terraced/semi-d and 20sqm for a detached, assuming all other limiting conditions are met.

Assessment of shading by anything right outside the back door will have a negative impact
Even if both gardens face due south, someone will complain about their morning or evening light being lost.
If its exempted you don’t have any overshadowing issues to deal with, but if its a permission, you get all this grief,

I’m not saying that neighbours’ concerns shouldn’t be looked at.
I’m saying that the exempted development schedule shouldn’t be undermined by the planning process.
If they continue to do this, we’ll all end up with “pod” structures on the far rear boundary, Seomras or suchlike and they’ll soon clog up the planning offices.

Perhaps this is a “cunning plan” by Cardinal Mazarin to make more work for small practices.

ONQ.

@onq wrote:

……I suppose they have a bit of time on their hands now, but still – 12 sun path diagrams – that sounds like overkill.
Was this called for under the development plan requirements or was it under the BER standard?

ONQ.

The request was for “Diagrams showing the extent of overshadowing..” in mid-winter & mid-summer.
I translated that into diagrams for 9am, 12pm and 3pm for the summer and winter solstice, for the existing structures and then the proposed structures.
ie. 12 diagrams.
This had nothing to do with BER.

Sorry, I should have written BRE as in Building Research Establishment.

What did you use to create the diagrams – I mean which programme?

ONQ.

SketchUp.

@Tayto wrote:

SketchUp.

(nods)

Yeah, I thought so.

I’m only starting to get into it myself – normally I freehand sketch for 3D
I was amazed what three basic tutorials and 20 minutes messing around with some basic forms and textures got onto a page.

Fantastis programme, “light” in terms of its use of resources and it works with my ATi Radeon 512Mb card, although its supposed to prefer Open GL.

ONQ.