Council dispenses with 'local' rules in planning revamp - Unfortuntately these rules won't help anyone in Bearna!!!!

by Una Sinnott

Locals in large parts of the county will no longer have to fulfill stringent ‘local' rules when applying for planning permission to build a family home. The move comes as part of a raft of significant changes to the Galway County Development Plan agreed by councillors at a 14-hour meeting this week.

The amended plan makes a clear distinction between the GTPS area — which covers the townlands within about 25 kilometres of the city which are largely subject to urban-generated development pressure — and areas outside this. People wishing to build homes in outlying areas of east and south Galway, as well as west Connemara, will no longer have to comply with criteria which define them as local in order to secure planning permission, and the use of enurement clauses has been abolished in most of these areas.

Inside the GTPS boundary, people seeking permission to build a home on the family farm can do so, subject to normal planning criteria. Applicants who do not have a family farm can seek to build within eight kilometres of their family home with the stipulation that the site must not be closer to Galway city than the family home. Enurement clauses will still be used in these planning permissions but the duration of these clauses has been reduced from 10 years to seven.

Following concerns raised by Cllr Seán Ó Tuairisg the Cois Fharraige area will be exempt from the need to build away from the city, as development in the area can only occur linearly due to the proximity of the coast and the Connemara Bog Complex.

The council has also agreed changes to the imposition of language conditions on developments within the Gaeltacht, with areas where less than 20 per cent of residents speak Irish now exempt from the requirement that a proportion of all new developments in Gaeltacht areas be restricted to occupation by Irish speakers. The rule had previously been applied throughout the Gaeltacht despite some towns, such as Claregalway, having very few Irish-speaking residents.

The Irish language rule will now only be strictly applied to Gaeltacht areas within the GTPS boundary, with areas outside of this adopting a less stringent approach with local people, returning emigrants and migrants and their immediate families, people contributing to the local economy, and Irish speakers will be in a position to secure planning permission, subject to normal planning criteria.

“The areas outside the GTPS are Clár areas, so we wanted to make it a bit more flexible there,” Cllr Seosamh Ó Cuaig explained. “We also managed to get the importance of the new road through Connemara into the plan.”

The areas outside the GTPS boundary are, for the most part, Clár-designated areas which have experienced net depopulation in recent years, and housing need criteria have been relaxed in these areas in a bid to stimulate population growth.

The changes to rural planning will also see the removal of settlement centre boundaries. The county's settlement centres were previously designated by circles around the centre of each town or village, but this has caused problems for many settlements with much of the designated development area covered by commonage or water in some villages. Many settlement have seen a massive increase in the cost of land within the circles, pricing local residents out of the market in some instances. Applications will instead be dealt with on a case by case basis and applications for housing developments that can achieve a degree of connectivity with an existing village centre will be encouraged.

The changes have seen a mainly positive reaction from county councillors. Many have welcomed the new criteria while concern remains among others about aspects of the new planning arrangements.

Cllr Ciaran Cannon welcomed the changes, saying they enshrined the rights of rural residents to build new homes.

“These provisions are most welcome, in particular in the areas of east Galway that have suffered population decline,” he said. “What we are now saying to people is that if you wish to be granted planning permission for a house in the countryside, and you have no connections with a particular rural area, you should now be looking at the area roughly east of a line drawn between Gort and Tuam.

“In this area there will be very few planning restrictions put in your way, and when you are granted planning permission there will be no enurement clause attached to that permission. We hope that this provision will encourage development in areas that really need it and will lessen the development pressure in areas that are closer to Galway city.”

Cllr Cannon also welcomed the removal of designation circles from the county's settlement centres, along with a provision that applicants seeking to build new housing estates will also be expected to provide facilities within housing developments that will benefit the community as a whole.

“I believe that we are now adopting a far more holistic approach to developing these very unique settlement centres,” he added. “The simple circles drawn on a map were far too prescriptive and did not allow all landowners in an area an opportunity to make a planning application for housing. Land prices within these circles went through the roof and this was creating an almost artificial market for much needed development land and housing.

“Now what we are suggesting is that all landowners within a reasonable distance of a village centre can meet with our planners to explore the possibility of submitting an application. Landowners will definitely be encouraged to provide such facilities as play areas, playing pitches, parks and other facilities that might benefit the community as whole and this provision is most welcome.”

Cllr Fidelma Healy Eames welcomed many of the new provisions, but expressed concern that people whose families live in Oranmore and other villages are still unable to secure planning permission on lands outside these villages because this would be regarded as urban-generated rural development. In some cases family homes have been subsumed into these urban areas over the years. She also expressed concern that people who worked in rural areas would have to provide housing need, while returning emigrants and migrants will not. However she said she was very happy with measures which would ensure farming families could build in their own areas.

“I'm very pleased that we have protected the integrity of the farm,” she said. “Farming is a dying craft and we have got to support it.”

The new provisions come into force immediately.

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