Outdoor summer kitchens on the Côte d'Azur

Ask a French builder for a cuisine d'été (summer kitchen) and you'll usually get a masonry counter with a grill and a sink, often a pizza oven, sometimes a roof. Once it's built in, the planning rules treat it as a new construction, like a garden shed.

Outside protected sectors, its footprint decides. That's the emprise au sol, the ground it covers seen from above. Up to 5 m², with no more than 5 m² of floor area, you file nothing. From 5 to 20 m² you need a déclaration préalable (planning declaration). Above 20 m² it's a permis de construire (planning permission).

Near a listed monument, in a protected old town or on a classified site, the 5 m² exemption goes. A déclaration is needed from the first square metre up to 20 m², and a permis above that. The mairie then has two months to answer, and the ABF (the state heritage architects) reviews the file. They can set the stone and the colours.

The PLU (the local zoning plan) can be stricter about siting, materials and colour. So can the rules of a housing estate (lotissement). Where the PLU says nothing on siting, a structure goes on the boundary or at least 3 m from it. A strict PLU can catch even a small counter with no roof, so ask the mairie's planning office before you build. If a required filing is skipped, the problem stays with you as the owner.

A grill, a fridge and lights outside need their own protected circuit from the house. Outdoor sockets sit behind a safety cut-out, the device that trips when current leaks, and they must be rated for wet weather. Ask the electrician to put the circuit on the quote, with covered sockets.

The sink is where projects go wrong. Washing-up water is household waste water, so it goes where the house's waste water goes: the mains sewer, or the septic tank if the house has one. It must never be tied into the rainwater drain, which carries water away untreated, and it can't run out onto the garden.

Ask where the sink will drain and how far away the nearest waste pipe is. Septic tanks are common up in the hills. If you have one, ask whether the tank and the SPANC (the septic tank inspection service) need to know about the extra sink.

Inland and up the hills, frost comes most winters, and a pipe left full can split. Ask for a stop valve indoors and a drain point, so the outdoor supply can be emptied before winter. That matters most if the house sits empty.

Piping gas out to the kitchen, from the mains or a propane tank, changes the house's gas installation. A qualified gas installer does it and gives you a certificat de conformité (certificate of conformity) at the end. A plancha (flat griddle) on a bottle has a flexible hose with a use-by date printed on it, so replace the hose when the date passes. Store bottles outside and upright, never in a cellar.

Distance from the house comes first. Every metre between the kitchen and the house is a trench for the cable, the water pipe and the waste pipe, and gas adds another line. A kitchen built against the back wall needs far less of that than one down by the pool.

The chimney and the base come next. A wood oven, or a barbecue you want to use in summer near woodland, needs a masonry flue with a spark guard. A sloping plot needs a level base or footings before any counter goes up. A roof adds its own structure, and bioclimatic louvres add a motor and wiring.

Appliances and finishes set the rest: seaside-grade steel and stone worktops cost more than render and tile.

Then there's the TVA. The 10% rate for work on a home over two years old doesn't reach a new outdoor kitchen. The tax office treats a new garden construction as new building, at 20%, even in masonry. Appliances are 20% however you buy them, built in or not. An open pergola fixed to the house can take 10%, but a freestanding one is 20%. Ask which TVA rate is on each line, and why.

Get at least two written quotes for the same layout, with the base, the services, the chimney and the appliances priced as separate lines.

A roof terrace or garden for your use alone is still a common part in a copropriété (the building's co-ownership). A freestanding grill and a table are furniture. A built counter, a gas line or a drain through the slab is building work on common parts. It needs a vote at the AG (the owners' general meeting).

Light changes pass by a majority of all owners. Building something takes a double majority. Without the vote, the other owners can make you remove it at your cost. Ask the syndic (the building's managing agent) whether the building's rules say anything about barbecues or gas bottles on terraces, because buildings differ. You may still need the mairie's filing on top.