Submission on Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines
Wednesday, April 28, 2004
The Irish Planning Institute welcomes the principle of guidelines for rural housing. The Institute has been calling for publication of the guidelines on this issue for some time to address serious concerns which have arisen in relation to recent development trends in rural housing throughout the Country.
However, the Draft Guidelines as published run directly counter to principles of proper planning and sustainable development.
The title of the Draft Guidelines “Sustainable Rural Housing” is a misnomer. It is quite clear from the Minister’s Forward that the purpose of the Guidelines is to set out a much more liberal approach to the development of one of housing in rural areas.
This is in spite of the fact that there already exists a very liberal approach to one of housing in Ireland, one of the most liberal in Europe. This is borne out by the departments own statistics which show that in the region of one third of new housing development, which is at an unprecedented rate of construction, is in the form of one-off rural housing.