Pre planning meeting- Do's, Dont's & Advice

J

jryan

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I have asked my local planning office to schedule a pre-planning meeting before i finalise my application for outline planning on a site. The site assessment has
already been completed and it passed.

I was wondering what are the do's and don'ts of such a meeting. I'm sure there are alot of specific items that should be covered, i.e

1. Ask them what you would likely get planning for, ie bungalow, two storey etc.
2. Where should you put your entrance.
3. How far back the front wall should be from the centre of the road.
4. Should i involve the local councilor? Invite him to the meeting?

Are there any addtional items that should be covered?

There are 3 bungalows marked with "X" |X|X|X|#~H| to the left of the site. There is then a partition containing
1. Tall trees - 30ft marked with "#"
2. The farmer is keeping approximately 15m of land "~" before my site as an entrance for machinery to the field behind.
Note: Boundaries marked with "|"

I was hoping to build a two storey on the site. Does anyone with a planning background have any advice in how i should present this information to the
planner and have the best possible chance of building a two storey. There are
many threads on this site highlighting the difficulties in attaining planning
permission so any advice would be welcome. I don't want to get off on the
wrong foot with the planner :) .
 
Get the local County Council engineer for you area to come out with you and look at the site. He will then be able to tell you in principle what you need to do......
Do this informally before the pre-planning meeting.
We learnt this to our cost......first time around skipped this part and found out for second time around.
 
I would be concerned about the farmer retaining a 15ft entrance adjoining the land ... would it bother you if he sold the rest of the site for a housing estate?

As regards the other issues, don't overthink it. The planning officer will usually put you straight. The entrance will be dependant on the site lines that you need to achieve ... which varies from site to site. Generally your boundary wall would need to be in line with existing boundary walls of adjoining sites. You may be required to put a footpath outside the bounary wall.
 
Thanks for the feedback. I just found out i have a six to eight week wait for the meeting with the planner. The joys of it. There are lots of hidden delays...
 
im a fully qualified proffessional architect
my general experience with preplanning meetings are that they are all a waste of time. forget them. Planners generally provide an inconsistent poor service and will either tell you what you want to hear at the meeting to avoid confrontation or in your case will take advantage of you inexperience and ask you to stuff that is unreasonable and will suit them. In anycase, dont be suprised if they contradict the preplanning meeting and refuse you permission. I wouldn't bother with an outline permission either as this is a complete waste of time and costs. They could grant you outline permission and later on when you apply in full, refuse it. Instead i would apply for full planning permission and get a local draughtsman who knows what he is doing to contact the roads and drainage dept for design guidelines and stick a house or whatever on your site. Appeal the decision if neccesary and Leave it to the gods to decide. The whole planning process is inconsistent and many proffessionals consider it a lottery as there is no certainty.
 
Thanks again for the input. The only reason i was leaning towards outline planning permission was that i did not want to spend 2500/3000 on architect/draughtsman fees for two-storey house and get refused and have to change the plans to a dormer. It would be an awful waste of money to have to go through the loop more than once. The best option would be to agree to pay an architect on condition that we got full planning. Is that a frequent occurence?
 
outline planning permission isn't worth the paper its written on as there is no guaruntee that this will get you full planning. And even if you do get full permission someone may appeal the decision and an bord pleanala could overturn their decision for a large unbeknown reasons.

thats why planning costs money and could take several before you get full permission, particularly in rural areas. You may be lucky and it will arrive quickly. speak to other people who have recently been through the process.

As far as the money is concerend you should look at the bigger picture because 2 or 3 k is a small outlay for the rewards of Property development . You should think that all Investment has risk attached to it and obtaining planning could double your land value.

if you are concerned about dormer windows, what are the adjoining new houses doing? thats why you should get local draughtsman. he will know what the general feeling is.

If you are still unsure, phone them, it will save you time going down there. . However i will remind you that what ever they say on the phone will still be unreliable.
 
I tend to agree with Moylan.. We got planning after 5 years of hardship and many pre planning meetings, phone calls and site visits - most of what they told us to do they refused us on later.. It is most certainly a lottery and dont take for said everything that the planners tell you... They told us to go with X and then refused us on and then we appealed to An Bord Pleanala and they refused us too...

Good Luck!
 
Having been through the planning process and been refused and then granted pp, I'd have to agree with Moylan and say that such a meeting might in fact be a bad idea as the planner may well take the opportunity to turn down suggestions you want to make, leaving you feeling as though you can't apply for certain things. And nothing will be set in stone anyway, so you won't be able to rely on any thing said. And you may even end up with a completely different planner when your planning application is submitted ( as happened to a friend of mine recently mid-way through her application).

I'd ditch the pre-planning meeting altogether.
 
I had a completely different experience. I got FPP last year in what would be considered a “sensitive” area – scenic, coastal. I kept the planner involved in a lot of the process. Like JRyan I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a set of drawings only to have them thrown out at the end of the application. I rang the planner before I got drawings done and told her I wanted to make an application for PP on the site. She asked me to send in a map showing the site. I followed up with a phone call and she said I could go ahead and make the application. I did not get into specifics with her – house type etc and did not expect her to guarantee anything, I just wanted to know if I should go ahead with the application or not. I guess I didn’t really want to give her the opportunity to shoot my house type/style down at this stage so kept things general. I sent in the application and as it turned out I did have to make a change! (but didn’t need new drawings); again to the planner’s advice. I had the FPP after 6 months. I think you have to keep an open mind and be prepared to compromise – other wise you can get locked into a battle which could take years.

Perhaps I was lucky too. Friends of mine did the same thing and was told they would be wasting their time making an application, and not to spend the money on getting drawings done for their site – very harsh I know, but they were glad not to spend time, money and energy on something that more than likely would be refused – they found another site, again consulted with the planner and got PP there instead.

I agree that the whole thing is pretty arbitrary and it does seem to depend on the individual planner – and it shouldn’t be like that. I suppose my experience just shows that a pre planning meeting/discussion can work well and save a bit of time. I also think that if you can, you should go for the Full Planning Permission rather than Outline, you don’t have to build for 5 years and may aswell go for all or nothing.
 
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