Advice re. new Solar Planning Exemptions (October 2022)
The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage signed two new sets of regulations entitled the Planning and Development Act (Exempted Development) (No.3) Regulations 2022 and the Planning and Development (Solar Safeguarding Zone) Regulations 2022 which have immediate effect.
The two sets of Regulations are linked and combine to amend and extend the existing exemptions for solar installations for a range of classes of development. An overview of the key provisions of each set of Regulations is set out below.
These regulations set out the updated conditions and limitations which apply to the various pre-existing classes of development (e.g. houses, industrial, light industrial, business premises and agricultural). Substantial increases to the existing planning exemption thresholds for solar panels are provided as well as the introduction of two new classes of exempted development.
These Regulations set out 43 Solar Safeguarding Zones (SSZs) within which a rooftop limit on solar panels continues to apply. The SSZs are applicable to all classes of development other than houses. In Donegal the Solar safeguarding Zones are located at Finner, Donegal Airport - Carrickfin, and Letterkenny Hospital. The SSZs are available for viewing in detail on www.myplan.ie .
Among the main changes provided for are as follows:
1. apartments, and
2. educational / community / sports / healthcare / religious / library buildings, and gas / electricity / telecommunications / water supplies and wastewater services sites.
The Regulations also provide by way of condition that solar exempted developments within an SSZ for all classes other than houses must be notified to the planning authority within 4 weeks of the development commencing.
The notification requirement is not a consenting requirement and does not require any formal planning document to be completed. The requirement may be satisfied by a letter or email to the planning authority outlining the location and scale of development. A response from the planning authority is not required.
The matter of solar exempted development and the potential impact on protected structures and Architectural Conservation Areas (ACAs) was a primary consideration of the Department in the development of these regulations.
The provisions contained in sections 57 and 82 of the Planning Act and article 9 of the Principal Regulations provide that development shall not be exempted development if it would materially affect the character of a protected structure or a building in an Architectural Conservation Area.
In this connection, each class of development now also includes a condition in respect of free-standing panels that provides that “the placing or erection of any free-standing solar photo-voltaic or solar thermal collector installation within an Architectural Conservation Area shall only be exempted development if those works would not materially affect the character of the area”.
[Copies of the Planning and Development Act 2000 (Exempted Development) (No. 3) Regulations 2022 and the supporting Planning and Development (Solar Safeguarding Zone) Regulations 2022 are available on the Irish Statute Book website www.irishstatutebook.ie .]