Couple Ordered to Demolish House - any update?

There was a clear breach and an intent to break the law. This is no grey area for dispute - this is clear illegality and should not be condoned.

The reality is that if the system was fit for purpose the house would be long since gone. If it were in the UK, where they do have effective planning controls, then this situation would have been concluded years ago. The issue is the failure of the system to be effective and this case highlights how it needs reform.

The appeals process is broken, rather than the right to appeal been at issue.

Every citizen in the country is negatively impacted by the problems in the planning system - it needs to be sorted and letting this couple off will send out entirely the wrong message.

@Dav010 , you're proposing an approach of negotiation and compromise. Do you think this approach should apply only to these individuals, or to everybody who breaks the planning laws?

It’s actually my house.

Dont be a Silly Billy, pointing out that the CoCo are now in a frustrating bind is not the same as expressing support for them.

Planners are always compromising on planning policies, and ABP occasionally overturn CoCo planner decisions, so decisions are not set in stone. If you want to expand on it further, the ECoJ have found that development plans like those imposed by Irish CoCo’s probably contravene EU law and the right to free movement of people. There was a case in the Flemish region of Belgium approx 10 years ago which found that imposing restrictions on who can build where was potentially illegal. But rather like VRT on cars, the Irish government ignored the ruling, rather like this couple are.

That's because if things were so black and white, you wouldn't need anyone judging on these things at all. Everything has to be considered in the balance of the rules but also everything around it. A house on one site may be inappropriate if it was on the site next to it.

The owners of this house however have had the case reviewed many, many times, by different authorities and courts, and all are in agreement that the house is to be demolished. The owners are no longer trying to have the ruling overturned on any sort of legal basis, because that's simply never going to happen. They're just exploiting the planning process and tying it up in repeated appeals which they know will fail but each time buys them another year or so in the house.

States are allowed to set rules which achieve desirable strategic objectives. The issue was not the strategic objective (only allow housing which meets local needs) but it's discriminatory application.

You keep mentioning both sides should have found a compromise at the planning stage. As I understand it they applied for planning it was refused (based on building on a dangerous bend, road too narrow), at that point the family then ended all engagement with the council and planning process.

From the above facts (as I understand them) I don't understand your comment that the council should have compromised as at that point the ball was in the families court and they are the ones who didn't compromise or follow due process, it was up to the couple to take on board the points of the refusal and appeal / adjust / resubmit. They chose to build something twice the size of what they originally applied for.

Exactly. Unfortunately, sometimes the Council simply cannot grant permission for a multitude of reasons. The applicant may not like it, and can appeal it to ABP, but sometimes there is no compromise and no chance permission will be granted.

That doesn't mean the applicants can go ahead, build something even bigger than what they were told wasn't allowed because f*ck it, if you're breaking the rules may as well go all-in, and then complain about how hard it's been on you to be told you have to knock it down.

Councils will more often than not (in my experience) try to find a way to grant retention permission, whether by changes or modifications. However the reasons why the Council couldn't grant permission in the first place still applied to what the applicants ended up building, and it was simply not something which could be permitted or granted retention.

There is no compromise which could be reached. The applicants were outright told they could not build a house on that site. They did it anyway (again, a much larger one too). It's not something that happens on a mad whim one night out of frustration, it takes about a year and hundreds of thousands of euro to build a house like that.

So f*ck 'em.

But the Council could not grant planning for a smaller house, that's the issue. They could not grant permission for any house on the site, at all. They can't change and affect their own established precedent, guidelines and development plans just because this couple built a house that they were already told they could not get permission on the site at all for.

Everything that has followed has been purely and solely due to the couple dragging it through the courts and planning processes again and again. They are the ones objecting to the immediate resolution of complying with the law.

Nobody should care about their frustrations. Again, the house didn't pop up overnight. They spent the guts of a year and hundreds of thousands of euro building the (much larger) house that they knew they did not have planning permission for.

The time for compromise had been well passed at that stage. Everything that has happened since is solely the fault of the couple.

That would not have been a compromise acceptable to the council since the land was specifically designated as not for building on - it would have been a terrible precedent to override that alone. The council had absolutely no grounds to compromise.

The solution would be to impose an eviction notice and a very short enforcement notice before they get a chance to try again. send in the Sherriffs to drag them out. Send in the bulldozers and bill the couple for the works. That would send out the correct message.

it was the owners’ decision to go through 15 years of litigation.

What you’re proposing is to set a precedent that it’s ok to disregard the law so long as you have the neck to see it out to the bitter end.

We can’t reward people for doing **** like this.