Contents
  1. Introduction
  2. Applications
  3. Building Start
  4. Certificate
  5. Fee Schedule
  6. Plan Specifications
  7. Documents and Plans
  8. Naming Convention

Introduction

The planning department requires a series of documents and plans to process applications. The requirements detailed below are related to most applications, however, building starts, certificates and final plans may require less documentation.

Applications

Documents
  • Completed application form (2 copies for in-person).All application forms MUST have a valid email contact for applicant (and agent if applicable) to facilitate electronic documents.
  • Copy of certified surveyor’s plot for land
  • Cover letter (optional)
  • Location Plan - (Subdivision of land application/Erection of buildings/structures)
  • Subdivision Plan
  • Site Plan
  • Floor plans
  • At least two elevations
  • Applicable application fee (This will be determined by a planning officer)

Building Start

After planning permission has been granted for any building or engineering operation the department MUST be notified in writing of the date on which work is proposed to commence.

All proposed works should be set out for inspection by an officer of the department prior to the commencement of works. It is critical that all 'linemarks'/irons are visible at the time of the inspection in order to allow for accurate measurements. The cost of the inspection is one hundred($100.00BDS) dollars. A standard form letter referred to as a 'Building Start Letter' is dispatched with the planning permission in order to facilitate this process.

Certificate

On completion of the development, applicants often require a 'Certificate of Compliance' verifying that the development has been satisfactorily completed.  Prior to the issuance of this certificate, all conditions attached to the planning permission MUST be satisfactorily discharged and the development should be carried out in accordance with the approved plan.

This process is triggered by a letter to the department requesting a Certificate of Compliance. The fee for this service is one hundred and fifty ($150.00BDS) dollars. In some instances, the department may seek comments from a government ministry, department or statutory corporation prior to the issuance of the Certificate of Compliance in order to ensure that a specific condition has been satisfactorily discharged.

Fee Schedule

Please see the Fee Schedule for the requiste fees.

Plan Specifications

Section 26 (1) of the Planning and Development Act 2019, makes provision for the submission of a form and requisite drawings to the department when seeking planning permission.

  • An application for permission to subdivide land - two (2) copies of a plan, drawn to an ordinance scale of not less than 1:250m. The plan must show the position, boundaries and size of the proposed lots, the position and width of any road reserve and of any gutters, trenches or other means for taking water to be made or constructed over and through the land, and the levels for surface drainage.
  • An application for permission to erect any building or carry out any building or engineering operations, or to change the use of any building - two( 2) copies of the site plan drawn to a scale of not less than 1:200m with sufficient detail to show the layout and design of the proposed development in relation to any existing building on the land, to the boundaries of the plot on which it is situated, and the layout of any proposed, existing road, or other vehicular access;
  • Floor plan drawn to a scale of not less than 1:200m showing the arrangement of rooms on each floor of the building. In all cases the area of each floor shall be indicated on the plans;
  • Elevation plans drawn to a scale of not less than 1:200m of at least two (2) external facades of the building. In all cases where the land slopes, the elevation indicating the slope shall be submitted.
  • In all cases, the same number of copies are required at (1) and (2) of a location plan drawn to a scale of 1:2500m showing clearly the location of the property in relation to the nearest identifiable road junction or other landmark. The names of all roads and such other descriptions as may be necessary to identify the property should be clearly marked.
  • All plans (except location plans) MUST have a left margin of no less than 4.5 inches to facilitate placement of electronic stamps.
  • All plans submitted MUST be accompanied by an electronic PDF file, whereby the file size MUST not be greater than 5MB.
  • All digital plans MUST be in the same orientation as viewed if physical.
  • The orientation for the property shall be indicated by means of a North Point on each drawing or plan and the scale to which each drawing or plan is drawn.

Documents and Plans

  1. No file should exceed 5MB in size and the total number of files to be attached should not exceed 10MB. Where possible/necessary, created pdfs should be reduced in size (compressed) and must not be encrypted or password protected. Most if not all the popular (common) email clients do not allow files greater that 10 MB to sent. If the files are greater than 10 MB we will have to dispatch your decisions in more than one email.
  2. There are situations where files larger than 10 MB will be required e.g. submission of Environmental Impact Assessments, Environmental Impact Statements and reports containing pictures.
  3. All documents, whether colour, black and white or grayscale shall not exceed a resolution of 200dpi. Higher resolutions will result in an exponential increase in file size.
  4. The layout for all sheets shall leave the entire left side of the sheet free of plan information. This space should be 4.5 inches in width.
  5. All attachments (documents, plans, etc.) shall be submitted in the PDF format. No zip files will be accepted.
  6. If picture files are to be submitted, they should be the JPEG images only and shall not exceed a resolution of 200dpi.
  7. Pdfs should not be rotated. This is particularly applicable to persons who still produce drawings by hand. If the drawing is in landscape, when scanned it should be in landscape orientation and not portrait.
  8. Documents may be submitted as individual or multipage Pdfs. If a multipage file (pdf) for upload is preferred each document type should be placed in its own file. For example, documents and plot plans should not be combined with architectural plans because we affix the stamp to plans and not documents.
  9. Plans combined in a single file should have the same orientation, e.g. either landscape or portrait not both.
  10. If multipage pdfs are submitted and revisions of plans are required, a complete set of plans would have to be submitted and not just the corrected plan. When plans are stamped, they are affixed to all plans in the file which means that superseded plans will also be stamped.
  11. While it is not standard practice to scale plans, sometimes it is necessary in the assessment of the proposal. In the digital environment scaling plans the usual way (scale rule) is not possible. All plans should include a scale bar which would allow dimension checking no matter the scaling of the plans on screen.
  12. Plans should be drawn to scale and the information on the sheet should be organized in a manner which allows for easy onscreen reading. Reducing a drawing to fit (fit to page) a particular sized sheet is not allowed. Text must be legible, and plans should be dimensioned in a manner which does not result in clutter.
  13. The smallest size sheet for drawings allowed is A3 or 11x17
  14. The usual requirements for drawings e.g. north arrows, key dimensions, elevation down the slope for sloping sites, scales, drawing names etc. are still in force.
  15. For sloping sites or where there are significant drainage features, a topographic map may be required.
  16. For sloping sites, cross-sections of the site and building may be required.
  17. Shading or planting which obscures sections of the drawing (whether plans or elevations) shall be removed prior to submission.

Naming Convention

The Department has adopted the following file-naming convention, please see below:-

Document Name - Applicant’s Name – Date

  • e.g. Ground Floor Plan John Smith 2022-02-25

If it is a revised plan, Rev 1 should be added. If there is more than one revision of the same plan the revision number should be sequential.

  • e.g. Ground Floor Plan-Rev 1 John Smith 2022-02-25
  • e.g. EIA Joe Smith 2022-02-25