The recent call made by elected members of Leitrim County Council for Government assistance in dealing with the county’s vacant housing situation would be comical if it weren’t so serious.

Of the 22 elected members of Leitrim County Council, 17 of them have held their seats for over 10 years, and Of the remaining 5, 2 have held their seats for over 5 years.

As is the case all over the country, these Councillors regualarly disclaim responsibility for their actions by insisting that power at Local Authority level rests with the County Manager and not with them. Anyone with even a cursory knowledge of planning law knows that this is complete nonsense.

County Councillors have 2 key powers: they get to set commercials rates, and they get write Development Plans.

A Development Plan is written for every county every 6 years, and serves as the guidebook for planners in their decisions to grant or refuse permission for individual planning applications. If a Development Plan tells a planner that a particular area is zoned for residential development, the planner is required to look favourably on proposals for residential development in that area.

The formulation of Development Plans is a power that rests solely with the elected members of a County Council.

The last 3 Development Plans that have been produced by the elected members of Leitrim County Council have been blueprints for developer led chaos, so much so, that had all the land they zoned for residential development been used for residential development, Leitrim today would have a population of approx. 80,000 people.

What is worse is that even when is was abundantly clear that Leitrim was already oversupplied with housing (the 2002 census showed that approx. 24% of houses in Leitrim were unoccupied on a permanent basis), these same Councillors went ahead a zoned even more land for residential development in the 2002-2008 Development Plan.

In fact, the message still hadn’t sunk in after the 2007 Census (the 2007 census showed that 29% of houses in Leitrim were unoccupied on a permanent basis, although this finding was never actually discussed at a Council meeting), and when the Councillors came to write the 2009-2015 Development, not only did they remove a section inserted by the County Manager that aimed to incentivise use of the existing housing stock, they all included a call on the Minister for Finance to further extend the housing related tax breaks that had contributed to the over supply of housing in the first place.

The madness didn’t end there, however. Leitrim County Councillors also took it upon themselves to silence An Bord Pleanala, the national planning appeals agency, who had on a number of occasions overtuned decisions my by the Council’s planners in relation to specific developments.

In February 2006, after An Bord Pleanala overturned a decision to grant permission for 39 houses in the tiny village of Rossinver, Leitrim County Council voted unanimously for a motion of ‘No Confidence’ in An Bord Pleanala.

Unsurprisingly, nobody paid very much attention to this, so the next time An Bord Pleanala provoked their ire, in May 2008, the Councillors went one step further and voted (unanimoulsy again) to abolish An Bord Pleanala.

This is the sort of childish nonsense that has characterised the execution of perhaps the primary responsibility of elected members of Local Authorities, to provide for sustainable, long term development of communities which they represent.

No independent analysis of what has happened in Leitrim over the last 10 years could conclude that any forethought has gone into the planning of Leitrim’s communities, or that the people who were charged with that responsibility had the faintest idea what they were doing.

Instead, we are left with a huge oversupply of housing, a local construction sector that won’t recover for at least a decade, and an unfinished housing estate problem that will consume the Council’s scarce resources for years to come.

The Councillors recent call for Government assistance is an admission of same.

No Comments »

Green Party Environment Minister, John Gormley, will publish new planning legislation this month which will make specific reference to the issue of unfinished estates.

The Bill will contain provisions to allow planners refer to a developers record of completion before that developer is granted permission for subsequent development.

This was not the case in the past, when developers could move from one estate to the next prior to having completed previous developments.

The effect of this will be place the onus for completing development back on the developer. They may not be planning any new development in the immediate future, but they will know that completing any existing development will be key to their commercial viability in the medium term, which should focus their minds in relation to their current responsibilities.

We’ll update here as soon as we know more.

No Comments »

During the recent Green Party Convention in Wexford, I took a walk around the town and came across this:

Wexford Borough Council has instated a policy of temporary pedestrianisation in the centre of the town during weekday business hours.

I’ve always been a proponent of pedestrian areas in the centre of larger towns, although I do think it has to be sensitively managed, particularly in relation to the livelihood of the traders it may affect.

However, given the current problems we have in the centre of Carrick on Shannon in relation to shoppers frequenting the retail parks on the edge of the town, should we start considering a bit of lateral thinking?

Bridge Street and Main Street in Carrick quite often look like car parks more than bustling town streets, and I have no doubt that this atmosphere influences shoppers in their choice of destination.

I think the time has come to look at a Pedestrianisation trial, from the corner at Paddys Pub to the Clock. Its a small enough area and no more than 20 parking spaces would be lost, many of which are already used by traders themselves anyway.

On the Saturday I was in Wexford Town, there was a real buzz about the place, and it was great being able to walk down the street without the din and congestion of constant traffic.

Surely, Carrick should at least consider pedestrianisation as an option?

No Comments »

The final date for submissions in relation to the proposed amendments to the Leitrim County Development Plan is Dec 8th.

The original plan contained a Land Use Strategy which aimed to deal with some of the more negative results of previous land use policy in County Leitrim, most particularly the concentration of one-off rural housing around Carrick on Shannon and the high vacancy rates brought about by speculative development.

Of course, this didn’t sit too well with our Councillors, for whom proper planning and sustainable development are forms of witchcraft which must be resisted at every turn.

Basically, they voted (unanimously) to insert an Amendment into the Draft Plan which effectively removes the Land Use Strategy and returns us to the Land Use policy of the previous Plan, which as we all know, was a complete joke in terms of planning.

In fairness to them, the County Manager and Senior Planners tried to convince them not to do this, but to no avail. I’ve reproduced a section of the Draft Plan here, which outlines the Managers concerns re. the Amendment. When you read this sort of stuff, you’d wonder if we’d be better off if we didn’t have any Local Government at all.

3.3 Amendments to Land Use Strategy in respect to Rural Housing in the Countryside – Section 2.01.04 of the Draft Plan refers.

Proposed amendment No 11 refers. The more recent amendment brought forward by the Members to convert, areas identified in the Draft Plan as areas of low capacity, to areas of medium capacity, represents a significant modification of the rural settlement strategy. This proposal taken in conjunction with other related amendments including;

a) the widening of the categories of development considered acceptable in medium capacity areas (by the inclusion of item 4 to policy 1.4d of the Draft Plan - pg 42 of the Draft Plan refers) (amendment 12 refers)

b) the omission of the definition proposed in the Managers Report in terms of “reasonable commuting distance” (pg 59 of Managers Report refers)

c) the reduction of the medium capacity area around Garadice Lake

d) the omission of a small stretch of low capacity along the public road leading from Farnaght to the County Boundary near Drumlish Co. Longford (amendment 10)

is likely, in the long term at least, to have the following impacts:

1) Less environmental protection in environmentally sensitive areas/areas under pressure from development. The protection of these areas is considered of significant importance in terms of features such as; water quality, public health, the rural character, visual amenities, ecology and heritage. Of particular note is the increased difficulty in meeting the requirements of the Water Framework Directive.

2) A reduction in the capacity of these areas to accommodate development arising from local needs - leaving it more difficult in the long term to accommodate those with a local need.

3) Less likelihood of achieving a more balance pattern of development within the county. The amendment removes a positive discriminate in favour of those rural areas in need of economic and social support ie areas identified as “high capacity”.

4) A reduction in the demand for housing within the serviced areas of nearby towns and villages - leading to higher vacancy rates and less vibrant towns and villages.

5) A lesser possibility of reducing the overall residential vacancy rate in the County which at 27% is the highest in the Country (CSO 2006).

6) The creation of a greater demand on the resource of the Local Authority - leading to a demand for the uneconomic extension of public services and failities such as public footpaths, public lighting, foul and surface water sewer.

7) Increased risk of the coalescence of towns and villages such as Kinlough/Tullaghan/Bundoran/Ballyshannon, Carrick on Shannon/Leitrim Village/Drumshanbo, (Ballinamore/Fenagh and Dromod/Roosky - leading to the suburbanisation of the countryside through undesirable ribbon development and also compromising the urban form and character of towns and villages.

8 The creation, in certain instances, of an unrealistic expectation among those who would otherwise fail to qualify under local needs criteria of a grant of permission. Well established planning principles as set out in national guidance, “Sustainable Rural Housing” remain to be applied.

9) The creation of greater stress on the development management process in its effort to ensure that the environmental integrity of these areas is not compromised.

10) An addition to the pool of persons who would qualify under local needs in the areas identified in the Draft Plan as low capacity - placing these areas under greater environmental stress.

11) The cumulative impact items 1 – 10 above is likely to challenge well established principles of sustainable development.

No Comments »

The Draft 2009 - 2015 Leitrim County Development Plan is currently open to public consultation. Submissions in relation to the Plan are invited until May 15th. Further public consultation periods will occur before the Plan is finalised.

The Plan is a lenghty and detailed document, but it will serve as a reference guide for social and economic development in County Leitrim for the next 6 years.

We have identified a number of key aspects of the Plan that relate to urban and rural land use, and given a brief introduction to them in the Guide which is available for download below.

Land use is a key component of the Plan, but it also outlines a lot of other important policies in relation to economic development, environmental protection and social inclusion.

Further details can be found in the Plan itself, which can be downloaded from the Council’s website.

We encourage you to consult the Plan, and to make your opinons known to the Council.

Download our Guide from here

Download the full Plan from here

No Comments »

Would you like to live in a house built on this site?

The Planning Department in Leitrim County Council, and the elected members of Leitrim County Council, would like you to live in houses built on sites like this.

This site is in Dowra, on the Leitrim/Cavan border. Earlier this year, Leitrim County Council granted planning permission for the construction of 34 houses on this site. On April 4th, An Bord Pleanala (thankfully) overturned that permission.

Of course, this caused consternation in the chamber of Leitrim County Council, where several councillors, seemingly oblivious to recent CSO data that show that 29% of all houses in Co. Leitrim are vacant, railed against An Bord Pleanala and the local environmental group who appealed the original decision of the Council.

These same councillors have repeatedly called for the “regionalisation” of An Bord Pleanala, so that they can exert more influence regarding decisions like this.

Let me state the Green Party’s position very clearly:

No houses on floodplains

No regionalisation of An Bord Pleanala

Planning for communities, not property developers

1 Comment »