Inspector recommends no planning exemption for Mark Mohun’s Malahide extension

This report is a localnews.ie summary based on public court reporting and records; sources are listed below.

Planning inspector Patricia M. Young recommended that alterations and additions to the rear extension at Mark Mohun’s property at 26 Estuary Road, Malahide, County Dublin, be found to constitute development and not exempted development. Her report is dated 3 March 2016. It contains a recommended draft order, rather than confirmation of a final An Bord Pleanála decision on this referral.

The Estuary Road Residents Group sought a determination concerning modifications to the ground- and first-floor extension. The report records that the referral reached the Board on 2 December 2015. Fingal County Council had declined to issue a declaration because current floor plans and a site layout plan had not been submitted. The inspector visited the site on 26 February 2016.

The inspector confirmed that the projecting first-floor window addition had been removed. In his response, the owner said the window box had been demolished to the council’s satisfaction. He maintained that the ground floor, first floor and roofline were exempted development, and that the rear awning required no planning permission.

The inspector accepted that the combined extension area was below 40 square metres. However, she assessed the remaining first-floor area, excluding the removed window box, as exceeding the separate 12-square-metre limit. She said the owner had not substantiated his contrary position and considered non-compliance highly probable. She also identified boundary-distance and upper-floor-window breaches, and considered restrictions on altering an unauthorised structure applicable.

The report recorded an earlier Board determination that the existing and additional rear extensions were not exempted development. It also recorded refusal of retention permission for a rear bay-window extension with a mansard roof, and refusal on appeal of planning permission for a two-storey rear extension.