What planning laws say about breaches of rules
PLANNING laws in Ireland are set out in the Planning and Development Acts 2000-2012.
Among other things, the legislation defines an unauthorised development as a building ‘not carried out in accordance with the permission granted or any condition to which that permission is subject’.
Under section 151 of the Act: ‘Any person who has carried out or is carrying out unauthorised development shall be guilty of an offence.’
Penalties for breaches of planning law depend on the nature of the offence but can result in a criminal prosecution, a fine and/or a prison sentence or both.
The penalty for carrying out an unauthorised development, for example, can rise to as much as a €5,000 fine and/or a six-month prison term.
In practice, an enforcement notice or court order to demolish an unauthorised development is more likely, though not common.
But the planning acts contain significant wriggle room for developers, mostly in the provisions allowing retention permission to be sought for an already-built development.
Officially, retention is frowned upon and not encouraged but it is acknowledged that sometimes mistakes can occur and lead to planning regulations being inadvertently breached.
This grey area of retention gives councils significant powers to rectify what would otherwise be an unauthorised development.
Planning law also provides that, even if a development is unauthorised, a council may consider that it is trivial or minor, and may decide not to take action.
They cannot do this in cases involving an environmental impact assessment.
A council must investigate if a formal complaint is made, but can regularise an otherwise unauthorised development by granting retention so long as a project is in keeping with local needs and plans.
For a developer, retention is a risky strategy since failure to secure this permission could result in an order for the property to be demolished.