Putting an end to urban sprawl

Donal Hickey looks at how we can protect Irish villages

IT was about time someone in power moved to protect villages and small towns around the country which have already been engulfed by overdevelopment in the past 15 years.

The character of many once-homely places has been ruined. Without forward planning we’ve the spectre of large housing estates sprouting up in totally unsuitable locations without the necessary services, including water, sewerage and roads.

This year, Environment Minister John Gormley plans to introduce regulations that will reduce the number of houses that can be built. However, he is unlikely to get the unanimous support of his Fianna Fáil partners and it’s safe to assume there will be opposition to his proposals from FF councillors. FF councillors and, indeed, their counterparts from other parties who like to describe themselves as “pro-development”, have been to the forefront of decisions to zone large tracts of land in, and close to, towns and villages.

Some of these zoning decisions are questionable and taken against the advice of senior council managers which has resulted in calls for the removal of zoning powers from local councillors.

Under Mr Gormley’s guidelines, developers will only be able to build 10 to 12 extra houses in villages of less than 400 people.

Also, planning authorities will be told not to increase the number of houses in towns of up to 5,000 people by more than 10% to 15% over the lifetime of a seven-year development plan.

Currently, local authorities and An Bord Pleanála must abide by the environment department’s guidelines when dealing with county development plans, but councillors enjoy greater freedom for action when drawing up local area plans. And they have not been slow to capitalise on that freedom.

It is understood Mr Gormley intends to change the legislation so that councillors will no longer be able to ignore national planning standards.

Councils should first use derelict or vacant sites, while houses built on greenfield sites in or near the existing centres should be developed so that residents are encouraged to walk and cycle, rather than drive, according to the guidelines.

Old villages in Cork and Dublin, such as Douglas and Stillorgan, have long since been swamped by the urban sprawl. But hundreds of villages far removed from cities and towns have seen explosive growth during the economic boom and many have lost their rural character.

The way things are going, people will soon have to go to places such as the Bunratty Folk Park, in Co Clare, to see what a traditional Irish village looked like. We’ve seen ridiculous planning applications for, say, between 130 and 200 houses, in villages with 40 or 50 existing houses, many of which have been occupied by the same families for generations.

All this is driven by landowners and developers, with scant regard for the capability of villages to cope with such growth, or effects on long-established local communities.

Villages within driving distance of towns and cities are being turned into dormer towns, from which people commute to work.

And there are other villages in coastal and tourist areas which have been grossly overdeveloped with tax-efficient holiday homes, as is evident in coastal areas of Cork, Kerry, Waterford and Galway.

Mr Gormley might also consider the plight of villages at the other end of the spectrum — villages that are literally dying in remote rural areas.

It’s a case of extremes. You have the over-expanded villages, but there are also villages in serious decline that are under threat from neglect and population loss and are finding it difficult to field hurling, or football, teams.

Such villages are in need of a population boost and should be given incentives to help them regenerate.

Groups such as the Heritage Council and An Taisce have been calling for a village plan programme, which appears to be the direction in which Mr Gormley is going.

County councils in Cork and Kerry have produced plans for its villages, but there are serious concerns in parts of Kerry about zoning of land for housing in such settlements.

Meanwhile, Kerry mayor Michael Healy-Rae has described the minister’s guidelines as an “attack on local democracy”.

“People already have difficulty in getting planning (permission) in the countryside and, if the development of towns and villages is to be curtailed, where are people going to live? You can’t stunt the growth of every place.’ In an effort to curb applications from people already living in towns to build one-off houses in the country, Mr Gormley intends to see some land ring-fenced for this type of development on the edge of towns and villages.