Our piece of land was in a lotissment created and sold directly by the municipality (mairie) of a small commune in the South-western France. We got the feeling that we could expect all possible assistance from the mairie and other offices and decided to apply without an architect (under 170 m2). Here is the story step by step.
1 - our good French friend of middle age told us it would be absolutely unfeasible to get by without an architect. Our response: C'mon, people could fly to the Moon.
2 – Since this is a lotissment organized by the Mairie, we received all required documents, such as the Certificat d'urbanisme etc., directly from Mairie, just to give them back to Mairie with our building permit application.
3 – With all utility connections provided (bornage), and many samples of plain-pied style already built, we felt it would be easy to meet the requirements by doing the things the neighbors’ way.
4 – Luckily, we had a 3D soft on our laptop and some background in 3D sketching and in Civil Engineering.
It did not take long to sketch the house and overlay the 3D model over the photo of the land.
We grabbed the printouts in A4 size and went to the Mairie.
5 – At the Mairie, the clerk looked over our papers and told us to fill out the application form which she readily provided, then go and check/cross-sign (free service) our design with the Office of the natural park (as we are located in Ariège Pyrenees Regional Nature Park), and then submit the set that should look like ‘this’ (she leafed through somebody’s submission printed on A3 in high quality).
We asked, ‘Would you give us a sample’, the answer was ‘No’.
6 – End of July it was, and the architect at the Office of the natural park was already gone till end of August. ‘He will reply to you as soon as he is back’, the receptionist said.
7 – It’s September, and we tickled the natural park architect with a couple of emails. In reply, the architect informed us that his office was due to be abolished from the next week, and our next step would be to consult with Conseil Général de l'Ariège, a similar free service in the Department of Ariège (in Foix).
8 – Appointments at Conseil Général are booked about 2 weeks in advance. Finally here we go, discuss our project with a very involved and nice officer who advises us to re-consider a glass veranda on a sunny side (too hot in Summer) and, perhaps, re-think the whole building orientation.
9 – The next step is to run the plan by DDT (Direction Départementale des Territoires) with the office at Saint-Girons. Arriving there on Friday just before end of business we are met nicely, and, despite posted public hours we are readily offered an appointment any time next week and availability of an English-speaking personnel.
10 – At the meeting it turns out that our land is susceptible to minor torrential flooding (to be exact, the dividing line is passing through the middle of our plot – half is susceptible, and half is not). For us that means that the foundation has to be 1 meter deep rather than 0.5 m by default. Of course, this does not mean real flood zone. The Mairie apparently checked that before creating the lotissment.
The officer also mentions the following possible considerations:
- admissibility of UPVC windows;
- the aspect ratio (width to height ratio) of windows (which may be enforced for some historic reasons);
- colors of the roof and walls;
- the orientation of the house – we prefer the main façade facing the street while other neighbors are built transverse.
In our way, most of our windows (such as floor to ceiling ‘baies-coulissantes’) will face east and west.
The officer says she will initiate an enquiry as to whether there are reasons for the transverse orientation of the neighbors.
With our desired plan we stay just centimeters outside the required 3-meter offsets from the side boundaries, however we have plenty of space in the front yard to maintain required 10 m distance between street centerline and the foremost point of the façade (porch);
- the lotissment regulation requires to plan for 2 car spaces within the property which notice we take;
- finally, it turns out that Mairie gave us an old (2012) application form; the new one for 2013 has just one more item in it – the thermique study, but that translates into the necessity to go and find an expert who will provide the report. Bummer.
11 – Our disputed orientation is approved, as, in fact, it is desirable in view of the torrential flooding.
12 – Visiting the renewable energy office near Foix (a free service) with a hope to trace a thermique expert. Learning nice things about solar and heat pump (such as you may qualify to sell your solar surplus for up to 200 euros per month).
13 – The thermique expert is found! The study costs about 650 euros and takes 2 business days.
- The thermique expert advised us to go for a pellet burner with air heating, and also disenchanted about the solar rent – it would not be offered any more (in our location or regionally – we did not understand).
- The regulations use a dividing line of 400 m altitude for the classification, and our location happened to be within +/- 2 meters of the 400 mark.
14 – Almost there, the last step being to print the plan in A3 size. Our bet for a photo lab did not work. Just by driving around Foix we spotted a Canon Center – and here we go.
15 – back to the friendly Mairie, we now have our complete application (‘dossier’) with A3 drawings, just like that they showed back in Summer. We are given the receipt of filing. Voila! The approximate wait period is 2 months.

Any comments, suggestions, questions welcome!