Sir, – The Government’s “Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness: Rebuilding Ireland” has much to commend it.
Its full implementation is likely to make a serious impact on a crisis that is otherwise threatening to spiral out of control.
However, the proposal to amend planning legislation to allow large housing developments of 100 homes or more to go directly to An Bord Pleanála is a retrograde and unwelcome proposal. This proposal will lead to a major weakening of the rights of local communities to have a voice in major planning decisions that impact on their community. These rights are enshrined in our legislation and supported by the legally binding EU public participation directive. These legal rights should not be hollowed out or weakened.
A statutory pre-planning consultation process with local authorities, mentioned in media reports, will not address the democratic deficit that will be created.
Builders and developers building 100 houses are not just engaged in the business of building houses. They are building a community. The expertise of local planners, and the statutory provisions of county development plans, along with local community inputs, are essential for local decision-making about such significant developments. It is unacceptable that this well-grounded and well-informed local knowledge would be effectively removed from the local sphere of influence and decision-making on large developments, and this at a time when exciting models of community engagement in shaping localities and in participatory design are taking hold.
An Bord Pleanála cannot and will not be a manageable forum for local engagement with projects in the way that the current planning provisions facilitate. Indeed, the Rebuilding Ireland plan (Appendix Three) proposes that, in the interests of efficiency, requests for further information or the holding of oral hearings will only be considered in exceptional circumstances.
Of course it is essential to streamline planning processes and remove any unnecessary administrative delays in approving housing proposals, whether these occur at departmental level, at local authority level or indeed within An Bord Pleanála.
We are being asked to believe that this streamlining requires and depends on removing local citizen input. If there are resources available to gear up An Bord Pleanála for this body of work, why not invest that resource in strengthening and rebuilding local planning departments and leave the rights of citizens alone? – Yours, etc,
Cllr ANNE COLGAN,
Dún Laoghaire Rathdown
County Council,
Marine Road,
Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.