Planners Warn on Rezonings
Monday, October 16, 2006
Professional planners employed by local authorities around the country are not to blame for problems which arise from developments on land rezoned against official advice, according to the President of the Irish Planning Institute (IPI), Mr Henk van der Kamp.
The Irish Planning Institute has also backed recent complaints by the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) about aspects of the planning system. The architects had complained about problems where land is zoned for development but not serviced with water or sewerage.
Mr van der Kamp pointed out: “The decision to zone land in any county lies solely with the elected councillors. Sometimes a decision is made by councillors to place a residential zoning on a parcel of land against clear recommendations by planners and engineers that the land is totally impractical to service and should not be zoned.”
He stated: “The problems resulting from this should be placed at the door of those responsible, rather than tarring ‘the planners’ for bad decisions made in the Council Chamber.”
Mr van der Kamp noted that the Institute had previously called for the decisions of elected councillors on zoning to be subject to independent scrutiny by a national Inspectorate, in the same way as decisions on planning applications can be appealed to An Bord Pleanala.
“Such a mechanism, while preserving local democracy, would ensure that incoherent zoning decisions are highlighted in the public arena, and councillors forced to give full reasons for such decisions. At present, the only person with the power to over-rule zoning decisions of County Councils is the Minister, and it is unlikely in practice that a national politician would interfere with decisions of local councillors, often from his own political party.
“A proper balance has to be struck between the rights of councillors to plan for their areas and the needs of sensible and coherent decision-making, in the national interest”.
On other problems in the planning system raised by the architects, he said: “Problems in the system for validating planning applications is an issue that needs to be addressed. This is an issue we have already raised with the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government seeking better guidance and improvements to the planning application process, both in comments on the updating of the Planning Regulations and more recently this year on the Development Management Guidelines being prepared by the Department”.
He highlighted ongoing problems in local authorities with a serious lack of adequate staff resources, particularly for professional planning staff, some of which stem from the re-organisation of Councils under “Better Local Government”.
This saw a reduction in the role of professionally-qualified planners in co-ordinating and delivering services and the use of the increasing untrained and unqualified staff handling planning applications, resulting in inconsistency and overly rigid interpretations of the Regulations governing the application process.
“Unfortunately too often professional planners are pointed to as the source of all problems within planning in local government”, said Mr van der Kamp, adding: “We as an Institute have been pushing for increased resources of professionally qualified staff so that a better and more integrated service can be offered to the public. It is essential that we have more planners employed in local authorities rather just more administrative staff so that architects and the general public can get a better service.”
He said: “The public has the right to expect that those dealing with planning applications are properly qualified to do this work. Regrettably, some local authorities have not lived up to this commitment, and are employing people without proper training to administer and operate the planning service. The results of this short-sighted policy are now plain to see.”