Building a house in County Kerry: exceptional rural need, seven-year occupancy and the €1,500 plus €20 per m² charge

Who decides, and how to apply

Kerry County Council decides applications for the county, and its planning applications page is where you search for and track them. The rural housing rules are in chapter 5 of the Kerry County Development Plan 2022-2028. The plan was adopted on 4 July 2022, came into effect on 15 August 2022 and incorporates the Minister’s planning direction of 5 December 2022. Councils can vary a plan, so check the current text before you buy a site.

Read how a one-off house application works first. Objective 5-22 requires the design of rural houses to follow the council’s “Building a House in Rural Kerry” design guidelines of 2009, or any update, so read them before your designer starts.

Three kinds of countryside

Kerry’s plan follows the 2005 Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines. The council scored every electoral division and one-kilometre grid cell on population, housing, employment and commuting, weighting population and commuting most heavily, and sorted the results into three types that are shown on Map 5.1.

• Rural areas under significant urban influence. These are close to the larger towns or on major transport corridors, with fast-growing population, strong housing pressure and strain on local roads. Objective 5-14 sets the need test.
• Rural areas under urban influence. Population is generally stable around a well-developed town and village structure, with a traditionally strong farming base. Objective 5-15 sets the need test.
• Other rural areas. These have low population density and are often isolated, and the plan’s aim is to stop sustained decline. Under objective 5-16 the council accommodates demand for permanent homes as it arises, subject to good planning practice on design, location, wastewater treatment and protecting landscapes and sensitive areas.

The plan lists the settlements in each type, such as Killarney, Tralee and Kenmare in the first and Sneem and Waterville in the second. Look up the electoral division of your site on Map 5.1 before you decide.

What counts as exceptional rural generated need

In both of the first two types you must satisfy the council that your proposal is an “exceptional rural generated housing need”, based on social or economic links to a particular local rural area, and show you fit one of these categories. Each is for building a first home as your permanent residence.

• (a) A farmer, or the son, daughter or a favoured niece or nephew of a farmer with no family of their own who want to build on the family farm.
• (b) Someone taking over a farm full-time, where no house is available to them. The new house must be tied to the working and active management of the farm.
• (c) Someone working full-time in farming or the marine sector for over seven years in the local rural area where they work and propose to build.
• (d) In areas under urban influence only, someone who has spent over seven years living in the local rural area where they propose to build.
• A life-limiting condition. Someone who has lived there over seven years and has a lifelong or life-limiting condition, and can show it is both necessary and beneficial to live next to immediate family, who live close by and will help with advanced care planning. This is category (d) in the significant influence areas and (e) in the others.

Where you own a landholding, the plan gives preference to renovating, restoring, altering or extending an existing dwelling on it before building a new one. For general advice on evidence, see rural housing and local need.

The seven-year occupancy condition

Section 5.5.2.1 says every permission for rural housing carries an occupancy condition restricting the house to you or your immediate family as a permanent residence for seven years from first occupation. Objective 5-20 repeats this for all rural residential development. Where the council thinks housing on the edges of its towns is becoming overdeveloped, it may also seek an agreement under section 47 of the Planning and Development Act to regulate development in that area.

Objective 5-18 gives favourable consideration to permanent homes on vacant sites in unfinished developments where services are complete. Objective 5-19 requires that rural housing does not harm the landscape, natural and built heritage, economic assets or the environment.

The development charge

The Kerry County Council Development Contributions Scheme 2017 was adopted on 25 July 2017 and applies to every grant of permission made after that date. A residential unit is charged €1,500, split between roads and transport and community and amenity, plus €20 per square metre of floor area above 125 square metres. A 200 square metre house is therefore charged €3,000. A house of 125 square metres or less pays only the €1,500. An extension is charged €12 per square metre above 40 square metres. The scheme says no indexation applies.

In Tralee and Killarney, including their environs, a further levy of €12 per square metre of residential floor area applies on top. Listowel has its own levy, but it does not apply to houses. Check the scheme’s maps to see whether your site is inside the Tralee or Killarney environs.

The floor area of a house you replace is exempt from the charge if it was serviced and last used as a dwelling, and the extra area is charged normally. A new house funded by a Housing Adaptation Grant for a disabled person is exempt up to 150 square metres, and anything larger pays the normal rate. Retention applications pay 150% and get no exemptions.

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

To see how Kerry’s charge compares, the development contributions table compares the charge for a 200 square metre house across all 31 councils.

Wastewater and site suitability

Almost every rural house treats its own wastewater, and objective 5-16 names wastewater treatment as a test even in the areas where the council is most welcoming. A site that fails the assessment cannot be built on whatever your local connection. Read site suitability assessments and wastewater treatment systems before you pay for the test.