Planning permission in Cork

Cork has six rural area types. In the Metropolitan Cork Greenbelt, the area under most pressure, you must show an exceptional rural housing need. That means farmers and their children building on the family farm, people taking over a full-time farm, people who work full-time in farming, forestry or marine jobs in the area for over seven years, or landowners and their children building on the landholding of the family home held for at least seven years. No more than two houses are normally allowed on one family farm in the Greenbelt since 15 January 2015.

In the rural parts of Greater Cork outside Metropolitan Cork and in greenbelts around towns, you must show a genuine rural housing need based on social or economic links to the local rural area. Routes include farmers and their children, people running a farm full-time, people working full-time in farming, forestry or marine jobs for over seven years, people who have lived in the local rural area for over seven years, and returning emigrants with the same history who wish to be near family, work locally or retire. The home must be your first home.

Where permission is given for a rural house on the basis of local need, the council normally attaches a condition that the intended person occupies it for seven years. In structurally weaker rural areas, the plan aims to accommodate permanent homes as demand arises, subject to good design, location and protection of landscape and environmentally sensitive areas.