New housing policy was presented as if there was only one choice, but thatis not the case, writes Frank McDonald
John Waters has taken a contrarian stance on several issues, but none so far off the mark as the notion he advanced last week about the "bungalow blitz" in rural Ireland - viz, that any criticism of this extraordinary phenomenon is motivated by "metropolitan prejudice".
But the argument is not about aesthetics. What it's about is the rampant suburbanisation of the countryside, and the widespread fear among those who care about its future that this deeply unsustainable pattern of development will be intensified by the new rural housing guidelines.
The guidelines introduce an even more laissez faire regime than currently exists, on the spurious basis that it is extraordinarily difficult for farmers' sons and daughters and others with "roots" in rural areas to get planning permission for new houses in the countryside.
How can that perception be squared with the reality that one-off houses in rural areas account for at least 36 per cent and possibly as much as 42 per cent of the total output of housing, according to official estimates. That amounts to 18,000 to 25,000 houses a year.
Given that there are only some 120,000 farmers still active throughout the State, An Taisce estimates that accommodating their sons and daughters should only require about 3,000 new homes a year at the very most.
Most of what's being built in the countryside has nothing to do with meeting genuine rural housing need. It is largely urban-generated, built by people who have decided they want to live in a "rural environment".
But the idyll of getting away from it all is shattered when another house is built nearby, followed by another, and yet another, and suddenly it's not much different to living in a suburb. So the first settlers move to somewhere more remote, and the same pattern is repeated there.
Anyone who travels around Ireland can see that the landscape is being changed irreversibly by suburban-style housing strung out along our country roads. This pattern of development is unique in Europe, where rural renewal is all about strengthening villages and towns.
But because we have chosen to suburbanise the countryside, many of our towns and villages are losing population. Athlone fell by 4 per cent between 1996 and 2002, Bandon by 7 per cent, Miltown Malbay 10 per cent, New Ross 4 per cent, Tarbert 9 per cent and Tuam 11 per cent.
In some places, notably west Cork, where planners have managed simultaneously to restrain the bungalow blitz and build up towns such as Clonakilty and Skibbereen as vibrant urban centres, the new guidelines threaten to unravel this achievement by introducing a free-for-all.
Yet the Government's own National Spatial Strategy (NSS) seeks to accommodate housing need within existing settlements: "Unmanaged, the projected growth in housing demand could lead to more urban sprawl and miss the opportunity to develop Ireland's urban structure."
The phrase that's repeated most in the NSS is "critical mass". But none of the five principal towns in the midlands - Athlone, Longford, Mullingar, Portlaoise and Tullamore - has a population of more than 20,000. How are they going to develop if life is drained out of them?
The focus of the latest regional planning guidelines for the Greater Dublin Area is also on "stemming the excessive dispersal of population . . . consolidation of the towns \ increase in residential development densities particularly in proximity to public transport corridors".
The alternative would conjure up a nightmare scenario under which "some of the countryside will resemble an ultra-low density suburb" with very high levels of car dependency for journeys to work, shops and schools and worsening congestion at peak time, even on rural lanes.
But now we have the Taoiseach himself holding out the prospect that Dublin-based civil servants who opt for decentralisation would be able to buy "mansions" in rural Ireland with the inflated sums of money they make from selling fairly modest houses in the capital.
And indeed, many of the one-offs now being built could be described as mansions rather than mere bungalows. Usually two storeys high and standing on a standard half-acre site, they often have three or four bathrooms - all draining into a septic tank that may not be maintained.
"Inappropriate single house dwellings in the rural countryside results in greater car usage, increased energy needs, and greater use of . . . septic tanks which have the potential to pollute ground-water". That's what the Environmental Protection Agency said in a report in 2002.
But the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, only acknowledges the ground-water issue in the so-called Sustainable Rural Housing guidelines, without pledging to do anything about it. He is merely "considering" whether any further measures are required to protect it.
It's no wonder that the guidelines have caused deep despair among Ireland's planners. Now that an open season has been declared, they expect an avalanche of applications for one-off houses, including many that were previously refused for sound planning reasons.
The main purpose of the new guidelines is to set aside established public policy, such as the 1997 Sustainable Development Strategy, which contained a presumption against urban-generated housing in the countryside - policy that was cited by An Bord Pleanála in refusals.
Yet the number of one-off houses actually refused on appeal amounted to just 6 per cent of the total number of decisions to grant permission. What we're getting is "government for the hard cases" - a classic response by our shamelessly clientelist political system.
With an eye on the local elections in June, the Minister wants to get the show on the road. But he is probably acting illegally by instructing the planning authorities to adopt the guidelines immediately as they are only in draft form and open to "public consultation" until April 30th.
"All we can do is hope that it's more optical than real," one senior planner said. Or that the European Commission will intervene, at least to enforce protection of habitat and wildlife areas that are meant to be protected under EU legislation - because they, too, are up for grabs.
What's really driving this is the money to be made from selling sites for one-off houses, especially in this era of agricultural decline. Mr Cullen must know that, and so must all of those who cheered his new, more indulgent rural housing regime at the Fianna Fáil ardfheis.
The Minister has presented this policy as if there was only one choice - suburbanising the countryside or developing "urban jungles". Is that how he visualises cities and towns? Yes, they have their problems, but cities are at the heart of what has been defined as civilisation.
You can't evacuate the capital city, scatter nearly half the civil service to 53 locations and imagine that everyone involved will acquire "mansions". If this is the Government's vision, we will end up with a land where towns never end and countryside never begins.