Building a house in County Galway: rural housing zones, charges and site checks

Who decides, and how to apply

Galway County Council decides applications in the county outside Galway city. You can search and track applications on the council’s ePlanning page. The council adopted the Galway County Development Plan 2022-2028 in May 2022 and it came into effect in June 2022. Its rural housing rules are in Chapter 4. Councils can vary a plan, so check the council’s current text before you buy a site.

Read how a one-off house application works before you apply, and ask the council for a pre-planning meeting.

The five rural housing zones

Chapter 4 splits rural Galway into five zones, each with its own objective.

Zone 1, the Rural Metropolitan Area (objective RH 1). This is the area around Galway city. You need a long-standing rural link or need through family ties, either to build a first home on the family holding, or because you grew up, went to school or spent a substantial, continuous part of your life in the area and have immediate family there. The plan says only people who establish a substantiated rural housing need may build on a greenfield site here.

Zone 2, strong urban pressure (RH 2). This covers the rest of the area studied in the Galway Transportation and Planning Study. You can qualify in several ways:

• a first home on the family farm, with the plan allowing special consideration where a landowner with no immediate family wants to house a niece or nephew;
• a first home within the community where you have long-standing links, if you have no family land, with the site within eight kilometres of your original family home;
• a job that makes you functionally dependent on the immediate rural area;
• a return after living away for a substantial part of your life;
• land that has been in your family for 20 years or more, shown by legal evidence or land registry folio details, in which case you do not have to prove further links; or
• a rural family now surrounded by a village that has no site for you.

The plan also lets family members apply where every site on the family land is in a designated nature area, subject to the Habitats Directive.

Zone 3, structurally weak areas (RH 3). The council aims to facilitate individual houses in these areas, subject to normal planning and environmental rules, except on land in landscape classes 2, 3 and 4, where Zone 4 applies.

Zone 4, landscape classes 2, 3 and 4 (RH 4). You must meet the same tests as Zone 2. The plan adds that you may be asked for a visual impact assessment if your site is in a mapped focal point or view, or in landscape class 3 or 4.

Zone 5, the Gaeltacht (RH 5). Applicants who fall in Zone 1, 2 or 4 inside the Gaeltacht must meet those zones’ tests, and a language enurement of 15 years applies to approved houses in this category.

What the plan means by “local”

Three definitions do much of the work. Seven continuous years or more in an area is the plan’s measure of a substantial part of your life and the minimum to count as a long-standing resident. “Rural links” means strong economic or social ties, with the site generally within an eight-kilometre radius of where you have lived. “Substantiated rural housing need” means you have never owned a house or had permission for a single rural house in that area, except in exceptional circumstances.

Around Gort, Loughrea, Athenry and Tuam the plan has an “urban fringe” rule. Applicants who want to build there must generally come from within eight kilometres of the site and must show a substantiated rural housing need under objective RH 2. Rural families now inside a village are not treated as urban-generated demand.

For more on proving local need, see rural housing and local need.

The enurement condition

Objectives RH 1, RH 2 and RH 4 each say an enurement condition applies for seven years after the house is first occupied by the person it was granted to. Replacing an existing family home is treated more lightly: the plan says applicants who need to demolish their family home are accommodated without having to establish housing need and are not subject to an enurement clause. Where a derelict dwelling is demolished completely rather than renovated, a seven-year enurement applies.

The development charge

Galway County Council’s scheme dates from February 2016, with rates revised from 1 August 2019. For a single house it has two parts, depending on whether your site is in sub-area 1 (towns and villages with local area plans, and the transport study area) or sub-area 2 (everywhere else):

• Sub-area 1: €2,152 for recreation and amenities, plus €7.50 per square metre for roads.
• Sub-area 2: €1,076 for recreation and amenities, plus €5.50 per square metre for roads.

On those 2019 rates a 200 square metre house would cost €3,652 in sub-area 1 and €2,176 in sub-area 2. The scheme says rates are adjusted each 1 April using the CSO’s wholesale price index for building and construction, so today’s charge is probably higher. Ask the council for the exact figure for your site.

House extensions and domestic garages and sheds are exempt. If you demolish a house and rebuild, the charge is reduced pro rata by the share of the old house’s floor area. Derelict sites on the register are exempt. The scheme said it would be reviewed within seven years of adoption, so ask whether a new scheme has replaced it.

The national waiver was only for homes that started on site between 25 April 2023 and 31 December 2024. A house starting now cannot qualify. See the waiver guide.

Wastewater and site suitability

Objective RH 11 provides for sustainable rural housing where there is no public sewer, in line with the EPA’s code of practice for wastewater treatment systems for single houses. The plan names the 2009 edition. The EPA has since published a replacement (March 2021), so ask your site assessor which edition the council expects for your application. Read site suitability assessments and wastewater treatment systems before paying for the site test.