Buying agricultural land with a view to getting planning permission and selling it on

CalRobert

This is weird because it involves two things I support that seem opposed but come from the same ideology. Low-impact, high density living in a city, or low-impact, low-density (and ideally no-debt) subsistence farming (or foraging, ideally) in the country. It appears the government is opposed to both of these things.

GingerLily

Are you looking to buy so you can sell on or to live?

CalRobert

GingerLily wrote: »

Are you looking to buy so you can sell on or to live?

Oh, I guess I did get a bit off topic. Sorry for hijacking the thread!

I was thinking I'd like to buy some land to:

* work from fully remote
* Grow a substantial portion of what my family eats
* Rewild a good chunk of the rest with flora that would have been appropriate to the region 1000+ years ago. If there's a bog, preserve that for the benefit of birds and future archaeologists.

Maybe set up a small observatory too (so ideally far from light pollution)


But I currently live in the city and it seems like doing the above is illegal because of that.

awec

CalRobert wrote: »

I thought "local need" was ruled illegal?

What if I just eat over 50% of what I produce? Was thinking about getting a large spot and rewilding a good chunk of it. This island could use more trees.

Telling someone from the city they can't go buy a plot of land and live off it seems like a great way to kill the countryside, while turning it in to a mix of low density housing and pesticide-coated wasteland for large developers and farming interests who can bribe planning boards.

Having lots of little small holdings pop up all over the countryside isn't going to do it much good either.

GingerLily

CalRobert wrote: »

Oh, I guess I did get a bit off topic. Sorry for hijacking the thread!

I was thinking I'd like to buy some land to:

* work from fully remote
* Grow a substantial portion of what my family eats
* Rewild a good chunk of the rest with flora that would have been appropriate to the region 1000+ years ago. If there's a bog, preserve that for the benefit of birds and future archaeologists.

Maybe set up a small observatory too (so ideally far from light pollution)


But I currently live in the city and it seems like doing the above is illegal because of that.

Is this genuinely what you actually want or are you just making an argument?

Because could you not just buy a small farm? Or a house with land?

victor8600

CalRobert wrote: »

Oh, another crazy question -

What if I want to buy agricultural land so I can farm it? Can I build a house to live in there?

If I don't farm it commercially, but want to be self-sufficient and live off what I grow, can I do that?

Yes, you can buy land and farm it. Or plant a forest. And no, you cannot live on that land.

arctictree

Just thought I'd address some of your points as they keep cropping up again and again on this forum.

CalRobert wrote: »

I thought "local need" was ruled illegal?

Incorrect. The planning rules come from the county development plans (CDPs) which are voted in by the politicians (after lengthy consultancy periods) and built using the national development plan as a base. Most state that you must have a social or economic need to build in a rural area. The national development plan (to 2040) proposed that the social part of this be removed (this is the 'local need' clause). This proposal was blocked by politicans, so it looks like the local need clause is here to stay.

CalRobert wrote: »

What if I just eat over 50% of what I produce? Was thinking about getting a large spot and rewilding a good chunk of it. This island could use more trees.

Irrelevant to a planning application.

CalRobert wrote: »

Telling someone from the city they can't go buy a plot of land and live off it seems like a great way to kill the countryside, while turning it in to a mix of low density housing and pesticide-coated wasteland for large developers and farming interests who can bribe planning boards.

The problem is that if the above was allowed, people would just say they are doing this in their planning apps and you would have bungalows pretty much everywhere.

Regarding bribing planning boards. This is a surefire way of having your planning app rejected out of hand and possibly a criminal conviction.

CalRobert

arctictree wrote: »

Just thought I'd address some of your points as they keep cropping up again and again on this forum.


Regarding bribing planning boards. This is a surefire way of having your planning app rejected out of hand and possibly a criminal conviction.

So, I'm relatively new here, but my understanding was the corruption is a major problem and planning corruption in particular carries no penalties aside from "Well, I guess I can't be Taoiseach anymore"

arctictree

CalRobert wrote: »

So, I'm relatively new here, but my understanding was the corruption is a major problem and planning corruption in particular carries no penalties aside from "Well, I guess I can't be Taoiseach anymore"

Well, I have been through a number of planning applications and in my experience corruption is non existent. Even if you did manage to bribe a politician, they have no say in the decision making process anymore (at least in my county), so you would be basically wasting your money at the very least. Trying to bribe a planner directly would land you in very hot water and probably have your application thrown out.

Seth Brundle

Corruption tended to be in terms of land rezoning rather than in the planning permission decision making process.
The rezoning was decided by our wonderful public reps, not really by planners.

CalRobert

arctictree wrote: »

Well, I have been through a number of planning applications and in my experience corruption is non existent. Even if you did manage to bribe a politician, they have no say in the decision making process anymore (at least in my county), so you would be basically wasting your money at the very least. Trying to bribe a planner directly would land you in very hot water and probably have your application thrown out.

I'm really glad to hear that. Maybe it's a relic from the past. I have a couple of colleagues who claim the planning boards are massively corrupt. One says his cousin spent ages trying to get permission for a house next to his parents on their land and after repeatedly getting denied was told they might be able to "work something out" for 10k....

LadyLavery

I'd really like to do what CalRoberts wants to do to - genuinely - not to sell. I'd love to live a more self sufficient life & plant lots of trees. It seems impossible. If you're not a farmer, or the son or daughter of a farmer, you won't get planning permission. That's what I was told by the planning office this week. I don't get the logic of it. A son or daughter can build and then sell...? I actually want to do some good for the land, not make money out of it.

Lumen

LadyLavery wrote: »

I'd really like to do what CalRoberts wants to do to - genuinely - not to sell. I'd love to live a more self sufficient life & plant lots of trees. It seems impossible. If you're not a farmer, or the son or daughter of a farmer, you won't get planning permission. That's what I was told by the planning office this week. I don't get the logic of it. A son or daughter can build and then sell...? I actually want to do some good for the land, not make money out of it.

So buy some farmland and be a farmer. That's essentially what you're proposing, to be a really inefficient farmer.

CalRobert

LadyLavery wrote: »

I'd really like to do what CalRoberts wants to do to - genuinely - not to sell. I'd love to live a more self sufficient life & plant lots of trees. It seems impossible. If you're not a farmer, or the son or daughter of a farmer, you won't get planning permission. That's what I was told by the planning office this week. I don't get the logic of it. A son or daughter can build and then sell...? I actually want to do some good for the land, not make money out of it.

Well, if you have any more success or learn anything else I'm all ears. It's just flabbergasting that you can take two people - maybe both of them have even lived in Dublin for several years - and it's illegal for one of them to build on land where another person can. It really sounds like it should be challenged in court.

Rechuchote

Isn't it in Denmark that they put a halt to housing bubbles by planning laws that included making it illegal to profit from rezoning?

CalRobert

Lumen wrote: »

So buy some farmland and be a farmer. That's essentially what you're proposing, to be a really inefficient farmer.

Earlier in the thread someone indicated that you had to earn 50% of your income from farming?

Which is funny in a way, because a farmer who can code might find themselves in a spot where ... I suppose the planning board arrests them for taking a good-paying remote job that then puts their farming income below 50% of their total?

I genuinely understand the concerns of sprawl and servicing rural areas and the like, but it still seems odd to treat people differently because of their family background. Imagine if we said only people with a connection to Dublin could live there!

TheShow

Potentially it can be done, how would you finance the purchase though? Essentially it will be viewed by banks as a speculative property development transaction which most banks would have zero appetite to finance these days.

CalRobert

TheShow wrote: »

Potentially it can be done, how would you finance the purchase though? Essentially it will be viewed by banks as a speculative property development transaction which most banks would have zero appetite to finance these days.

Good old fashioned cash. I was concerned more about planning so as to actually be able to live there.

LadyLavery

Lumen wrote: »

So buy some farmland and be a farmer. That's essentially what you're proposing, to be a really inefficient farmer.

Depends how you define inefficient. If you mean not make lots of money, yes probably I'd be inefficient. If you mean not make the best use of the land, your statement wouldn't necessarily be true. I have to say I'm pretty taken aback by the depth of negative feeling towards the OP's idea.

slavetothegrind

Local lad to me has built his house on family land a few years ago (recession times) now selling and building again on family land to profit and be mortgage free.

I cannot get permission on any land i would buy,

I am not from these parts so local needs excludes me but he is free to profiteer away

If only i had money to fight it but i do not.

System is wrong.

LadyLavery

CalRobert wrote: »

Well, if you have any more success or learn anything else I'm all ears. It's just flabbergasting that you can take two people - maybe both of them have even lived in Dublin for several years - and it's illegal for one of them to build on land where another person can. It really sounds like it should be challenged in court.

It seems like the only available option is to buy a house with a quarter acre garden someplace and hopefully buy some farm land nearby to 'live the dream'! I completely agree with you, I really don't get how it's ok for one type of person (i.e. someone from a farming family) to build on land but not another, when the one who is allowed may not have any intention to farm, while the other may be pursuing a lifelong dream to live off the land. On the other hand, I don't think anyone should be dictated to on how they use it either. Just seems bafflingly nonsensical to me.

Lumen

LadyLavery wrote: »

Depends how you define inefficient. If you mean not make lots of money, yes probably I'd be inefficient. If you mean not make the best use of the land, your statement wouldn't necessarily be true. I have to say I'm pretty taken aback by the depth of negative feeling towards the OP's idea.

I'm not being perjorative, but efficient farming is the whole basis for modern civilization. Without it this conversation would not be happening.

CalRobert

Lumen wrote: »

I'm not being perjorative, but efficient farming is the whole basis for modern civilization. Without it this conversation would not be happening.

The green revolution did wonders for world hunger, but at this point maybe we should reconsider making it a legal requirement to destroy a place's ability to sustain wildilife (I.e. Farming it) so you can live there.

LadyLavery

Lumen wrote: »

I'm not being perjorative, but efficient farming is the whole basis for modern civilization. Without it this conversation would not be happening.

Ok I understand, but modern civilization isn't doing too great a job of being efficient at the moment. What I'd like to do wouldn't have a negative impact on the environment. In fact Teagasc or Coillte were recently advertising a grant for people to grow trees on their land, so it's apparently something that is needed.

The way I see it we have 3 problems here:

1) Efficient use of agricultural land
2) Housing crisis
3) Environmental impact of mankind

1) By only allowing farming families to build on agricultural land, we are not guaranteeing in any way that the land will be used efficiently. Nobody is dictating to them what they must do with the land.

2) If the planning rules were more up-to-date, then more people would build, freeing up their previous homes for others to 'get on the ladder'.

3) We're having a massively negative impact on our planet and if there are those of us who want to spend our own hard earned cash to plant trees or live more sustainably, it shouldn't be so difficult for us to do.

I get why people are a bit leery of the whole idea, thinking that it's profiteering going on. And to be fair that may be what the OP had in mind, but on the other hand, even if he did build, it would be solving problem no. 2, the housing crisis, so in my mind it should be given careful consideration by the planners.

But for me, all I want to do is grow some trees and get some more fresh air out there

I think someone posted about a Danish law prohibiting profiteering and maybe that's what we should be looking to do.

Lumen

The planning laws we have are there to curb ribbon development, which is an inefficient and environmentally damaging way to distribute a given population.

LadyLavery

Unless you're from a farming family....

Lumen

LadyLavery wrote: »

Unless you're from a farming family....

Yes, sort of. They're exemptions from the rules.

And while I don't agree with the exemptions (we don't need more farmers, so there's no need for more housing for farmers) you seem to be arguing on the basis of fairness that everyone should be allowed to build on whatever land they can acquire, which puts us back to a time of unregulated development. Is that want you want, for there to be no limits on development in rural areas?

If we did that in the current housing market and with the current reliance on the private sector to provide housing with government subsidized rents, what would happen is that all the poor people would inevitably get shunted to apartment blocks in the middle of nowhere.

fallen01angel

For some reason I'm unable to quote the post : "It seems impossible. If you're not a farmer, or the son or daughter of a farmer, you won't get planning permission. That's what I was told by the planning office this week. I don't get the logic of it. A son or daughter can build and then sell...?"

Just a side note on the above response,I'm a farmers daughter,was willed a half acre site as was my brother and both of us were refused planning on numerous occasions,to the point after many years of rejection/throwing good money after bad, we just stopped trying and bought houses (in estates) miles and miles and miles away.
To the OP,you will have to really really do your homework in regards to zoning,if you haven't experienced it,the restrictions can be mind blowing,although they may have eased off in the the last few years.

CalRobert

Lumen wrote: »

The planning laws we have are there to curb ribbon development, which is an inefficient and environmentally damaging way to distribute a given population.

That's true. It's catastrophically inefficient. Of course, the reason it's so damaging can generally be traced to auto-dependence - ribbon development is fine if you're walking or cycling, or even on horseback I suppose. Then again, when you're paying for distance with your own effort people tend to space things better.

Actually, it would be amazing to be somewhere with roads that were nearly impossible to drive on but could be traversed with a cargo bike (just make them really narrow I suppose - but it raises issues with access for emergency vehicles). I noted a couple pages ago that most one off houses are horrendous environmentally, but for the odd person who doesn't just want a cheap giant house and a long drive to work, it might be OK. I was curious about the topic mostly because I just got a remote job and can work from anywhere. It's not exactly "the country", but I'm considering Cloughjordan for a lot of the reasons in this thread.

The rules still ought to treat people the same, though. It's not like farming is a good use of land; considering that it only exists as a way to grab subsidies from the EU I don't think it can be called efficient.

Seth Brundle

CalRobert wrote: »

The rules still ought to treat people the same, though. It's not like farming is a good use of land; considering that it only exists as a way to grab subsidies from the EU I don't think it can be called efficient.

Not all farming gets subsidies from the EU!