Family member can’t build house on home farm

AN attempt by a farmer’s daughter to build a modest one-off house on rural land on the outskirts of the city has been knocked back.

An Bórd Pleanála (ABP) upheld a decision by Galway City Council to refuse planning permission to build a family home in Briarhill, on a site five kilometres east of the city.

The applicant Amy Molloy had been refused planning permission by the City Council for a four-bedroom, two-storey, one-off house at her father’s site at Coolagh, which has been in the family for seven generations.

In the appeal to ABP, the applicant argued that the City Development Plan “was never envisaged to preclude the seventh generation of a family from obtaining planning permission on their own lands”.

She said that this proposed development was “the only opportunity . . . to secure a mortgage”.

It complied with the Development Plan and the Local Area Plan, and was in keeping with existing dwellings in the area, she argued.

“The blanket exclusion from granting one-off housing would be contrary to proper planning and would be an infringement on the constitutional property rights for the landowner. This is an exceptional case and should be treated as such,” the appeal read.

The site is currently zoned ‘A’ Agricultural, which allows for residential development where a convincing need is established by immediate family members of the owners of the site, residing in the immediate area.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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