Sites for communities

A CONDITION cannot be inserted in a planning permission requiring someone to provide a site for a school, church or community hall.

Section 38 agreements regulate the more substantial type of development and can provide for open spaces. The zoning can state ‘educational-social’ as a general objective, but it does not appear to be a distinct land use category.

The practice is that the Department of Education or church authorities advise the local authority to reserve a site or sites. However, those sites may be reserved on lands intended for residential use and so the owner of the lands may require of the department or church authorities payment appropriate to residential development.