House design guide
What Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown wants your home to look like
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council encourages high-quality, compact, and sustainable residential developments that protect existing neighborhood amenities. The council strongly prioritizes the reuse, deep retrofit, and extension of existing buildings over demolition. New homes must be designed with ample green open spaces, strong pedestrian and cycling links, and a layout that respects the established character of the local area.
Accepted house types & forms
What they want to see
Encouraged by the guide
Retrofitting and reuse of existing buildings(60, 68, 227)
Priority must be given to repairing, retrofitting, and reusing existing buildings rather than demolition and reconstruction to minimize carbon emissions locked in built fabric.
Adaptable and flexible design(60, 68)
Residential layouts should be flexible, accessible, and adaptable over their lifetime to accommodate changing household needs.
Subdivision of larger homes(84, 92)
Subdivision of larger-than-average family houses in well-serviced urban areas is encouraged to meet the demands of changing household sizes.
Green roofs(230, 297)
Developments with a roof area of 300 square metres or more must provide green roofs to manage surface water runoff and combat the urban heat island effect.
Pedestrian and cycling permeability(231, 239)
New residential developments must maximize walking and cycling links to nearby neighborhoods, services, and public transport nodes.
Passive surveillance of public spaces(231, 239)
Public open spaces must be designed to be passively overlooked by housing to prevent crime and ensure safety.
What gets refused
Discouraged by the guide
Demolition of habitable houses(93, 251, 259)
There is a strong preference for retaining structurally sound, habitable dwellings in good condition. Demolition will generally be refused unless a strong justification is provided.
Shared accommodation and co-living(90, 98)
There is a presumption against granting planning permission for shared accommodation or co-living developments as they are not supported by local housing needs analysis.
Urban-generated one-off housing in rural areas(95, 260)
One-off housing in the countryside will be restricted to prevent unsustainable development patterns and excessive strain on services.
Inaccessible or hidden open spaces(287, 295)
Inaccessible, hidden, backland, or narrow linear strips of open space are not acceptable as public open space.
Double-width vehicular entrances(266, 274)
Double-width vehicular entrances onto the front curtilage of residential properties will normally be resisted to protect visual amenity.
Outward opening gates(266, 274)
Outward opening automatic gates that obstruct footpaths are not acceptable due to safety hazards.
Roof gardens as public open space(287, 295)
Proposed roof gardens will not be accepted as a valid form of public open space.
Materials & finishes
- Sustainably sourced and recycled construction materials are highly supported (Page 68).
- Structural materials with low to zero embodied energy and CO2 emissions should be prioritized (Page 68, 227).
- Traditional materials like lime, stone, mud, thatch, slate, and timber must be used for historic and vernacular building repairs (Page 222, 230).
- Driveway surfaces within ACAs or Protected Structures must use high-quality traditional materials; concrete and bituminous surfaces are not acceptable (Page 266, 274).
Roofs & form
- Penthouse levels must constitute the equivalent of one storey and be set back from the edge of the building to minimize visual impact on the skyline (Page 240, 248).
- Pitched roofs should have a general southerly orientation (within 90 degrees of due south) to remain suitable for solar installations (Page 63, 71).
- First-floor front extensions must reflect the roof shape and slope of the main dwelling (Page 242, 250).
- Dormer extensions must be set back from eaves, gables, and party boundaries, and set down from the existing ridge level so they do not look like a third storey (Page 243, 251).
Siting & landscape
- A minimum of one-third of front garden areas must be maintained in grass or landscaped to ensure urban greening and drainage (Page 266, 274).
- A minimum standard of 22 metres separation distance is required between directly opposing rear first-floor windows, usually resulting in an 11-metre rear garden depth (Page 289, 297).
- One-off rural houses must be set well back from the road, preserving traditional field patterns and retaining roadside boundary hedges (Page 252, 260).
- New infill developments must respect the height and massing of existing units and retain physical features like boundary walls, pillars, and mature trees (Page 246, 254).
- An obvious buffer must exist from the rear garden boundary lines of existing private dwellings on sites abutting low-density housing where the proposed development is four storeys or more (Page 85, 93).
- Developments adjacent to watercourses must maintain a set-back of at least 10 metres from the top of the bank to preserve riparian corridors (Page 177, 185).