House design guide
What Waterford wants your home to look like
Waterford City and County Council requires new homes and extensions to respect local architectural character, use sustainable materials, and protect existing green infrastructure. Dwellings must provide adequate private rear gardens, proper separation distances for privacy, and sensitive front boundaries that avoid blank walls. For historic homes and conservation areas, original materials like natural slate, timber windows, and traditional plaster finishes should be preserved and repaired rather than replaced.
Accepted house types & forms
What they want to see
Encouraged by the guide
Sustainable design and construction(Pages 3, 4, 77)
Promotes near Zero Energy Building (nZEB) standards, passive solar design, and the use of green or locally sourced construction materials to minimize energy and carbon footprints.
Lifetime adaptable homes(Page 12, 18)
Requires at least 20% of dwellings in new residential developments of 5 or more units to be designed as Lifetime Homes suitable or adaptable for older people and people with disabilities.
Green infrastructure and Nature-Based Solutions(Pages 3, 13, 19, 86)
Encourages the integration of rain gardens, swales, bioswales, and living roofs/walls to manage surface water and enhance biodiversity.
Sufficient private open space(Pages 14, 16)
Requires private open space of a suitable gradient located behind the front building line of the house (minimum of 50 sq.m for 1-2 beds, 60 sq.m for 3 beds, and 75 sq.m for 4+ beds).
Dual aspect and corner layouts(Pages 13, 17, 18)
Encourages the use of dual-aspect designs and active corner sites to ensure passive surveillance, maximize daylight, and avoid blank facades.
Underground services(Page 16)
All utility services including water, foul, and storm sewers must be located underground, preferably under estate roadways, with 10m wayleaves in private areas.
Sensitive restoration of outhouses(Page 21)
Supports the restoration and conversion of architecturally meritorious outhouses for sympathetic residential or tourism use without requiring a genuine rural housing need.
Respecting existing building patterns in extensions(Page 23)
Extensions must respect and follow the pattern, scale, and form of the original building, and prevent overshadowing or overlooking of neighboring properties.
Reinstatement of traditional vernacular features(Pages 92, 93)
Encourages restoring historic materials such as thatch roofs, lime-washed external walls, timber-sheeted doors, and sash windows in traditional or vernacular homes.
What gets refused
Discouraged by the guide
Monotonous private open space(Page 14)
Providing only the absolute minimum standard of private open space throughout an entire housing scheme is discouraged.
Blank spanning boundary walls(Page 16)
Boundary walls and enclosures must not present blank spanning facades onto public thoroughfares.
Removal of front boundary features for parking(Page 22)
Generally prohibits the removal of front garden walls, pillars, gates, and railings to create parking, especially in ACAs, historic estates, or near protected structures.
Outward opening driveway gates(Page 22)
Driveway and front garden parking layouts must not include gates that open outwards into public footpaths or roads.
Permanent subdivision of gardens for granny flats(Page 23)
Ancillary subsidiary dwelling units ('granny flats') must not involve any permanent subdivision of the existing garden.
Non-native hedging and screening in rural areas(Page 73)
Planting Leylandii, Lawson Cypresses, and Grisellinia is discouraged as they appear intrusive and provide poor habitat for local wildlife.
Ornamental shrub boundaries in rural locations(Page 70)
Replacing natural hedgerows with ornamental shrub planting is discouraged to prevent the suburbanization of rural areas and biodiversity loss.
Ribbon development(Page 71)
Dwellings that create or exacerbate ribbon development—defined as 5 or more houses on one side of any 250-metre stretch of road frontage—are generally refused.
Modern replacement materials in ACAs(Pages 91, 92)
Replacing natural slate/thatch with fibre-cement tiles, or removing original timber/metal windows and replacing them with u.P.V.C. or aluminium, is refused/discouraged in ACAs.
Over-height rear extensions(Page 92)
Rear extensions on traditional or vernacular houses must not have a ridge height that exceeds the existing ridge height of the original building.
Materials & finishes
- Green construction materials with low embodied carbon (Page 3)
- Sustainably procured and locally sourced materials where possible (Page 77)
- Screen walls made of brick, stone, or rendered blockwork (capped and plastered on the public side) to enclose private open space (Page 15)
- Materials for replacement front walls must match the existing materials of neighboring properties (e.g. piers, railings, stone/brick/render detailing) (Page 22)
- Permeable paving for driveways and off-street parking areas (Page 22)
- Rendered finish for external walls in Architectural Conservation Areas (ACAs); rendering or plastering over historic ashlar stone or red brick is not acceptable (Page 91)
- Natural slate (traditionally Bangor Blue slate) and thatch for historic roofs (Page 91)
- Original timber and metal windows and doors instead of modern u.P.V.C or aluminium in ACAs (Page 92)
- Lime-washed external walls, timber-sheeted doors, and sash windows for traditional vernacular house restorations (Page 92)
Roofs & form
- Variety in roof profiles within a unified design concept is required for larger residential schemes (Page 12)
- Living (green) and blue roofs suitable for flat or pitched structures, with a target of covering at least 70% of the potential roof plate area (Pages 13, 14, 86, 87)
- Pitched slate roofs (usually Bangor Blue) are standard in historic urban centers, with thatch in Ardmore, Dunmore East, Dunhill, Kilmeaden, and Stradbally, and barrel-shaped tarred calico roofs in Portlaw (Page 91)
- Modern roofing materials like fibre-cement tiles will not be considered as acceptable replacements for natural slate or thatch in ACAs (Page 91)
- Historic chimney stacks, clay pots, cast-iron gutters, and timber bargeboards must be retained and repaired (Page 91)
- Raising eaves levels, altering roof pitches, or inserting dormer windows in vernacular houses requires planning permission (Page 92)
- The ridge height of extensions to the rear of vernacular buildings must not extend above the original building's ridge height (Page 92)
Siting & landscape
- Site layout should be guided by existing green infrastructure, ecosystem services, mature trees, and hedgerows from the initial stages of design (Page 3)
- Private open space must be located to the rear of the building line (Page 14)
- A standard separation distance of 22 metres must generally be observed between directly opposing above-ground floor windows (Page 15)
- Ground floor windows must be located at least 1m from the boundary they face (Page 15)
- A minimum of 2.2 metres must be provided between side walls of detached, semi-detached, and end-of-terrace houses (Page 15)
- Side garden walls of 1.8m height must generally be located behind the front building line of the house (Page 16)
- Front boundaries should be soft and open (e.g. low-level walls, railings, or hedges); open-plan gardens are prohibited on main access roads (Page 16)
- Driveway entrances must not be wider than 3 metres or 50% of the front boundary width, whichever is lesser (Page 22)
- A maximum height limit of 2.4 metres is applied to all inter-site hedging and screening plants (Page 73)
- No hedge cutting is permitted during the bird nesting season from March 1st to August 31st (Page 70)
- Dwellings along regional roads must be set back at least 18 metres (preferably 25m) from the road fence, and at least 30m along the Tramore/Waterford Road (Page 66)
- Sightlines at entrances require a 2.4m setback for single dwellings, with 'Y' distances varying by speed limit (e.g., 55m for 80km/h local roads, 70m for 50km/h zones, and 90m for 60km/h zones) (Page 67)
- Avoidance of new access points or increased traffic onto national roads with speed limits greater than 60 km/h (Page 64)