Planning inconsistencies affect rural site prices

Planning restrictions throughout the country are continuing to influence the price and availability of land for rural housing.

Despite promises by the Taoiseach Micheál Martin in the run-up to last November’s general election that farmers’ children should be allowed to build homes on their own land, planning regulations continue to impact families and young people in their efforts to settle down in rural Ireland.

The Planning and Development Act 2024 was signed into law by President Michael D. Higgins last October, legislation the then-Government claimed would make the planning system more transparent.

The minister responsible for its introduction, Fianna Fáil’s Darragh O’Brien, hailed the act as “the most significant reform in planning legislation” in quarter of a century. However, the legislation does not include updated guidelines on rural planning – the current ones date to 2005 – with draft guidelines yet to be put out for public consultation.

Scarcity of sites

The landscape for rural planning has changed massively in the past 20 years.

A housing crisis has made the prospect of home ownership increasingly unlikely for young people in rural Ireland and with restrictions tightening on who can build and where these homes can be located, there is growing anger and frustration among the farming community at the impact planning regulations are having.

As far back as 1999, the then-government issued a white paper on rural development which recommended that the future of rural society was based on the maintenance of dispersed, vibrant, rural communities. The paper also recommended that planning policy should, as far as possible, facilitate people willing to settle in rural areas, particularly those wishing to settle in their own areas of origin.

However, successive governments have failed to row back on an ever-increasing tightening of restrictions for those seeking permission to build a rural home on family lands.

Auctioneers have estimated that the increased restrictions on planning for one-off rural housing has left a scarcity of land available for rural housing, with a waiting list for suitable sites in some parts of the country.

David Moggan, an auctioneer and valuer based in Claregalway, Co Galway, said he had people calling his office on a weekly basis, enquiring about sites with planning permission.

“Five or six years ago there wasn’t the same difficulty for people in getting planning permission for a rural home, so sites were very easy to sell,” he says.

Road frontage

“There was a time where land with road frontage carried a premium, but that’s no longer having a positive effect on the value of land,” Moggan says.

“It’s definitely become more difficult for people to get planning permission. And there’s little point trying to sell a site without it as these sales are all subject to planning, so if it’s not granted, the sale won’t go through.

“The Government has been saying it will relax planning laws, but we’ve yet to see that happen.”

Road frontage land has lost its appeal for many prospective homeowners as sites near national or regional roads are increasingly unlikely to be granted planning permission.

A single lady in Co Galway, who lives a mile from Roundstone village in Connemara was granted planning permission for a home on her family’s land back in 2006. However, a change in her circumstances left her unable to proceed with the build. In 2021, she reapplied to Galway County Council with a new planning application.

“I was refused on the basis that I wasn’t intrinsic to the local community, despite living here most of my life,” says the woman, who did not want to be named.

“I was born in this area, went to national and secondary school and moved to Galway city for a time before moving home almost 10 years ago. I work locally and am on several community groups, so to be told I wasn’t intrinsic to the community was very hard to take.

“I appealed it and was refused a second time on the basis of insufficient sight lines at the entrance,” she says, “which is the same entrance to the family home, where I currently live with my mother. It’s a regional road, that isn’t particularly fast, and while it’s busy in the summer months, I wasn’t bringing any extra traffic onto it.

“I got a cousin to do some work to widen the entrance in the hope that would help my chances and applied a second time. But two weeks before the decision was due, a local councillor advised me to withdraw the application as she said it was going to be refused again because of the entrance.

“All in, I estimate I’ve spent between €10,000 and €15,000 in my failed attempts to to build a modest, two-bed bungalow on my family’s land. It’s very disheartening.”

Inconsistent policies

In the southeast, auctioneers are finding huge variations in the granting of planning permission within a county.

David Quinn, an auctioneer from Wexford said that the situation has changed in the past eight years, with prices for sites varying from €60,000 per half-acre up to €100,000 in more sought-after locations.

“Over the years there has been huge discrepancy between Wexford and our neighbouring county, Wicklow, with Wexford definitely easier to get planning. But since the economic crash, it’s become harder to secure planning for one-off houses,” he says.

“Wicklow, because of its border with Dublin, had much more planning restrictions than further south, but those restrictions still apply on the border with Wexford, which doesn’t seem fair. In fact, we’ve found sites in north Wexford are worth more than sites a few miles away across the border into Wicklow because there’s a perception it will be easier to secure planning from Wexford County Council.

“The continued lack of housing supply means that demand for sites in good locations will remain strong, and sites are moving well, which is ironic given that as recent as 2017, you couldn’t give sites away.

“Planning policies have been very inconsistent down through the years and it’s definitely getting harder for people. A perfect example is in Gorey, where if you drive along the coast up to Arklow, there are houses left and right for about five miles. Then you come to green fields as there’s been a move away from ribbon development and that is very unfair on young people and farmers, who are equally impacted by the tightening of planning restrictions,” Quinn says.

As the new Government finds its feet, the need to publish the rural housing guidelines will be a key demand of rural Ireland, with an easing of the restrictions that has prevented many farm families from building on their own land a top priority.