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SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, June 08, 2020

QUESTION NO. 20

QUESTION: Councillor F. Timmons

To ask the Chief Executive to issue a report into planning enforcement and who enforces the planning permission given and who monitors the planning as it happens ? and if planning is not complied with what happens? 

REPLY:

Planning enforcement and control occurs under Part VIII of the Planning and Development Act 2000. This legislation sets time limits within which complaints of planning infringements must be investigated. It establishes a common procedure for all type of planning offence – issue of a Warning Letter, service of an Enforcement Notice and institution of legal proceedings.

If a developer is in breach of their Planning permission and the Council receive a formal complaint the Enforcement Section will issue a Warning Letter in respect of this breach.

The Warning Letter, which must be served within six weeks of receiving the complaint, allows a developer up to four weeks to rectify the offence or to make a submission. Regard must be had to any submission received when deciding whether or not to serve an Enforcement Notice.

Normally a site inspection is carried out by the Planning Inspector prior to an Enforcement Notice being issued. An Enforcement Notice sets out the requirements of the Council to rectify the offence and contains a timeframe within which the work must be completed. Noncompliance with an Enforcement Notice is an offence.

Should any person served with an Enforcement Notice fail to comply with its requirements, the Council may institute legal proceedings in the District Court.

In urgent cases, the Council may alternatively apply to the Circuit or High Court for an Order directing that actions take place or cease, as the case may be.

The making of a planning application for retention of an unauthorised development is no longer a reason to delay/suspend the taking of enforcement action by the Council.