€34 – is it any wonder?
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I’ve been reading with interest a lot of the threads here that deal with the standard of design in housing esp one-off houses
I was round at a friend’s house last night avoiding having to “just have a quick look” at the drawings they’ve had done up for an extension (which actually aren’t bad) when I was struck by them complaining about the cost of the newspaper advert – €300 in the evening herald. this wasn’t the surprise – planning ads are always extortionate. They were comparing that to the cost of the planning fee which was €34. Nearly 10 times less!! I’ve never really thought about it because it’s a long time since I’ve lodged anything that wasn’t max fee but the crazy thing is that:
I imagined if someone came to me in my office, showed me a domestic extension and offered me €34 for an appraisal of it. Let’s assume that I took pity on the person and did the job for no profit. Assuming my charge out fee, I would be able to give them exactly 17 minutes of my time. If they had a new build house I’d have given them 32 minutes.
So assuming it takes a planner 7-10 minutes to ascertain whether a submission is even valid, that means 7 minutes design appraisal for an extension and 22 for a house. This would include doing a report and issuing the decision.
Personally I would prefer that the council scrapped the requirement for newspaper ad and spent the €334 building a better environment
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@wearnicehats wrote:
I’ve been reading with interest a lot of the threads here that deal with the standard of design in housing esp one-off houses
I was round at a friend’s house last night avoiding having to “just have a quick look” at the drawings they’ve had done up for an extension (which actually aren’t bad) when I was struck by them complaining about the cost of the newspaper advert – €300 in the evening herald. this wasn’t the surprise – planning ads are always extortionate. They were comparing that to the cost of the planning fee which was €34. Nearly 10 times less!! I’ve never really thought about it because it’s a long time since I’ve lodged anything that wasn’t max fee but the crazy thing is that:
I imagined if someone came to me in my office, showed me a domestic extension and offered me €34 for an appraisal of it. Let’s assume that I took pity on the person and did the job for no profit. Assuming my charge out fee, I would be able to give them exactly 17 minutes of my time. If they had a new build house I’d have given them 32 minutes.
So assuming it takes a planner 7-10 minutes to ascertain whether a submission is even valid, that means 7 minutes design appraisal for an extension and 22 for a house. This would include doing a report and issuing the decision.
Personally I would prefer that the council scrapped the requirement for newspaper ad and spent the €334 building a better environment
The main point that your post reflects to me, is not the little amount ime a planner can afford to spend on an application but the crazy hourly rate you are charging. Am i missing something altogether or would you charging €120 an hour to review somebodys drawings. Please tell me I am wrong.
I assume you that the planners spend longer that 17 mins on an application.
I agree with you that €300 is a bit extreme for a planning ad, but thats their own fault for going to the herald. For an extension the council would accept an advert in a smaller, and therefore cheaper, newspaper.
As to scrapping the requirement for newspaper ad. Do you honestly believe this???
If they got rid of it, it would be barely less than 3 months and everyone would be giving out about the multitude of buildings that got by without objections, as the public was unaware -
Bren88 wrote:The main point that your post reflects to me, is not the little amount ime a planner can afford to spend on an application but the crazy hourly rate you are charging. Am i missing something altogether or would you charging €]
It was a metaphor. I don’t review other people’s drawings. Planners do.
I work in the commercial world. I don’t do nixers. no time no interest. I have 20 years postgrad and I charge clients the going rate. For that they get a thorough, professional service. Pay peanuts get monkeys.
I “assume” you meant “assure”. If it’s true it’s good to hear. I just don’t believe it. You’re a student, what’s the basis for that staement? €300 for a 140 word ad for a domestic extension is a little more than extreme. You’re correct in that they could have gone for eg the northside people but that is a weekly publication where, bizarrely, the ad has to be placed 6 days beforehand. So if you miss it by one day you delay your application by 2 weeks. And even then it’s €100.
Apart from An Taisce, the only people who scour the planning pages are those who think they can make a few sheckels out of an objection (ok that’s a sweeping generalisation but in my experience it covers 90%). Why couldn’t the planning authority produce it’s own weekly publication for nothing other than planning applications?. If the advertising was properly managed it could be even become free to place an ad. All the ambulance chasers could still see the ads, the planners could justify an increase in fees and the newspapers would have to go back to journalism.
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I know you don’t do it and you were suggesting that IF you did as a favour that you could afforf 17 minutes for €34. I just thought it was extreme.
Surely if you missed the ad by one day you would only be delayed a week??
The idea of a planning ublication is a good one. It would is easy to increase the fee slightly to cover overheads, the total cost of an application would be reduced. But it would interfere with the timescale of planning, ad placed before lodging. They could make it a separate.
My basis for stating that they spend more that 17 minutes on a application is th fact that i’ve spent time reading planners reports and the level of detail in them wouldn’t be possible. For a bog standard extension its complying with regs thats really looked at. Obviously for a one-off house its design thats is evaluated.
And you’re right, I am only a student. I’ve met that attitude in a working environment too, Then again you’d be surprised at the amount of people with post-grad exp whose knowledge is sub-par, esp irriating when they try to correct you. -
wearnicehats
Surely ‘sheckels’ (sic) should have been spelt shekels?
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@Barry Hall wrote:
wearnicehats
Surely ‘sheckels’ (sic) should have been spelt shekels?
I’m not sure which I find more astonishing – the price of a planning advert or the fact that you obviously trawled my previous posts; looking for a spelling mistake; presumably to “get me back” for a comment on your spelling in a previous thread!! priceless.
ps If you’d looked more closely you would have seen that “staement” is also a mistake.
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We all make mistakes – who am I to preach?
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