An Taisce and planning
It’s been quite a while since I last posted but I suppose I’ve just been waiting for an excuse. I had a letter published in yesterday’s Irish Times which seems as good an excuse as any.
The background is a column by John Waters, “Beware the unelected busybodies” (subscription required), which contained the usual vitriol directed at the “chinless wonders” of An Taisce. The column drew the following letter of support from Liam Aylward MEP:
A Chara, - I would like to lend my full support to John Waters’s column on An Taisce’s negative role in blocking once-off rural housing developments.
People living in rural Ireland should have the right to build a home on their own land. An Taisce’s efforts to thwart this process at every turn is denying people the basic right to house their own families.
The people working in An Taisce have no democratic mandate, yet the policies they pursue have a very serious impact on the political direction that local authorities take when it comes to the granting or otherwise of planning permission for once-off houses in our country.
Ireland at present also has an ever-increasing population. We need policies which ensure that we can house our people in both urban and rural parts of Ireland.
If An Taisce has its way, then all progress will be blocked and Irish people who own their own lands will be powerless to build houses for their own families into the future. The power of An Taisce must be reined back.- Is mise,
LIAM AYLWARD MEP, Hugginstown, Co Kilkenny.
I was moved to fire off the following response, which was deemed worthy of publication for some reason:
Madam, - Liam Aylward MEP, as a representative of the main Government party, should be aware that “the political direction that local authorities take when it comes to the granting or otherwise of planning permission for once-off houses in our country” is set not by An Taisce, but by the Government and the local authorities themselves.
An Taisce’s only role is to highlight to planners cases where proposed developments would be contrary to these policies.
Mr Aylward says that An Taisce’s power “must be reined back”, but An Taisce has no powers either to set policy or to enforce policy - these are functions of Government.
I am not a member of An Taisce but I know a scapegoating exercise when I see one. - Yours, etc,
RYAN MEADE
July 19th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Ryano,
Good to see your back to your blogging best. I also am taken by Mr. Aylward’s assertion that property owners ‘rights’ are being denied when planning persmission is denied to them. Which particular rights are these? Human rights, God-given rights, the right wheel out a wholly notion of ‘progress’ every time a private individual wants to make a profit at the expense of the community as a whole.
January 4th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
how would you change the planning process to benefit rural ireland?
1. Assuming no particular development plan land zoning, limit speculative planning applications to 1 sucessful application per overall farm landholding every 3 years on regional routes, ( 5 years on local routes), strictly adhered to by the legal profession/ auctioneering fraternity. No speculative applications to be sumbitted on local tertiary routes (roads less than 3.6m wide) unless road has previously been upgraded to min. width of 4.2 m under a Community Involvement Scheme, as administered by the local authority.
2. Grant applications to family members on a case by case basis - no limits on numbers, but subject to 8 year residence clause. Mulitple applications on land holding shall make use of a shared singular entrance. Each site should have its own well and proprietary treatment system. Minimum areas of site, 0.2 acre with public water, 0.35 acres without. All applicants for housing on family lands should be aged 25 or over, and be a first time house owner.
3. No more than 1 new entrance every 240m on a regional route.
4. No more than 1 new entrance every 120m on a local route.
5. No speculative permssions outside speed limit zones permitted on national routes
6. No more than a cluster of 5 houses permitted (new/old)over a 500m radius.
7. No removal of hedgrerows to aid sight distance permitted except within the sites road frontage. All road boundarys removed greater than a 15m length shall be replaced with native species.
8. EPA Assessment of site for septic tank suitablility required.
9. No more than 4 sites / year granted to an individual speculator/builder in any calendar year, in any given county or its shared border county.