Planners Support New Sustainable Residential Development Guidelines
Monday, February 11, 2008
“Planning Authorities Should Not Ignore Regional and National Policies”
The Irish Planning Institute (IPI) welcomes the publication by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr John Gormley TD, of the new Guidelines for Sustainable Residential Development.
The draft Guidelines are a welcome attempt to address many of the difficult issues that have concerned the Institute over recent years. The Institute applauds the emphasis on quality of development, and on the role of good planning in the creation of sustainable communities. In particular, the attempt to secure better co-ordination between the development of new housing and the provision of essential infrastructure to support new communities, such as schools and other social facilities, is especially welcome.
The IPI also welcomes the aim in the Guidelines to prevent new housing development that is out-of-scale with Irish towns and villages.
The Institute has been concerned for some time that the smaller Irish towns and villages are often neglected and that there is too much focus on the issue of rural one-off housing. The IPI called in April 2007 for better planning policies to be put in place to protect many Irish villages which are under threat by being overwhelmed by out-of-scale population growth, resulting in the risk of becoming solely commuter towns.
The Institute supports the view of the Minister that a number of County Councils have zoned too much land for housing in some of our towns and villages, and that this practice has to change.
The issue that County Development Plans or Local Area Plans often zone excessive amounts of land for residential development should be addressed through amendments to the legislation whereby Development Plans and Local Area Plans must be in full compliance with the National Spatial Strategy and Regional Planning Guidelines before they can be adopted. Currently, local councillors are free to zone land without complying with national and regional policies, and this is no longer defensible.
Mr Andrew Hind, IPI President, said: “There are too many cases where local planning policies appear to ignore the regional and national policies. Stricter adherence by planning authorities to regional and national policies is necessary. Future Growth in our towns and villages needs to be matched by the provision of social, as well as physical infrastructure, to ensure that the communities are both sustainable and balanced into the future.”