Counting the cost of urban sprawl

AS well as a drop in the price of many goods, the recession has other benefits – the ravaged Irish landscape which has been the victim of a huge amount of destruction since the mid-1990’s is getting a break.

Housing, shopping centres and new roads that came with the economic boom all took their toll on the environment. But, a fall of around 50% in planning applications in 2009, tells the story of a dramatic slowdown in construction. Cork County Council, for example, had an average of 1,067 applications per month, in 2006, compared with just 426 this year.

That is a startling change when contrasted with the situation, in the recent past, when many towns and villages expanded beyond recognition, creating the new Ireland.

The boom accelerated the movement of population from rural to urban areas. Cities and towns began to sprawl as a result, with growth rates exceeding those of our EU neighbours.

Take Ashbourne, a small village in Co Meath, with a population under 400 until 1970. Then, in response to the growth of Dublin it became the location of massive housing development. The population of the town was 8,528, in 2006, according to the census of that year – a 34% increase on the previous census in 2002.

Records kept by the EPA show that artificial surfaces in Ireland grew by 31%, between 1990 and 2000, and by a further 25% since 2000. Is it any wonder then we have flood problems caused by run-offs from hard surfaces, some of which were built on flood plains? Urban sprawl, which has been with us for decades, is seen as particularly negative for the environment. It is difficult to serve vast and scattered residential areas with public transport, something that leads to air and water pollution, problems with waste management, loss of rural landscape and over-use of fossil fuels.

Sprawl can not only damage the land on which such developments take place but also surrounding areas which support animal and plant life. The massive increase in road construction in Ireland, for example, has the effect of breaking up habitats.

Wildlife, including foxes and badgers, is now a common sight in Dublin, Cork, Belfast and many towns in Ireland because animals are being forced out of their natural habitats. This phenomenon had been witnessed in the US and Britain for years and we are catching up.

I remember once seeing a fox sniffing around a red-brick residential area in the heart of London and looking quite at home in such an unlikely setting. That sight was a wonder to behold in an era when canny foxes kept well away from humans in Ireland: you just might see one around a henhouse after dark. But, the Londoners were unfazed.

The excessive growth of small villages and towns and a lack of adequate infrastructure to support them are also putting pressure on the rural environment. A shortage of drinking water and the inability of wastewater plants to cope with increases in population create health as well as environmental problems. Ireland has around 400,000 one-off houses in the countryside, serviced for the most part by septic tanks which pose an increasing risk to groundwater and surface water quality. Rubbish collection and other services are also much more expensive in scattered communities.

Much of the travel by rural dwellers is done by private car, thus increasing air pollution, while the loss of green space also puts more pressure on the environment. In the past few years, it has become more difficult to get planning permission for one-off houses and this trend is likely to continue. Moreover, when planners can point applicants to tens of thousands of empty houses on sale for bargain prices in towns and villages all over Ireland.

On top that, more land has been zoned for housing than we will need for decades to come. An Bord Pleanala has been giving warnings on residential over-zoning in recent years.

The planning appeals board has also described the extent of one-off housing – which accounted for 40% of all housing for which planning was granted during the construction boom – as “alarming”. The chairman, John O’Connor, has said the unsustainable amount of one-off housing would have to be tackled in the years ahead. Over-zoning is also of concern to the president of the Irish Planning Institute (IPI), Gerry Sheeran, who stressed country’s planning system was for the common good and not for landowners or developers.

There was a history, he said, of excessive land zoning which benefited certain individuals but was to the detriment of the community. “An example of this is the history of excessive zoning of land for development which benefits private individuals but has negative effects on the community at large in terms of quality of life, unsustainability of travel patterns and cost of providing additional infrastructure.”