An interesting article.

Just noticed your comments.

I have a newsletter about Irish planning – the Planning Dispatch – which you’ll find at http://www.garrymiley.com . You might check it out. Looking forward to hearing your comments.

Garry

particularly , is there anyone who disagrees with the article?

I would be very interested in reading the following weeks article…….

lets see how often he refers to the development plan in THAT article….

@alan d wrote:

particularly , is there anyone who disagrees with the article?

here’s what I took from his article:

he doesn’t like the planning system because
*it’s inherited from the British
*its incorporates sneaky euro-regulations
*it takes too long
*it allows for objections from third parties (‘do-gooders’)
*consultants get money to draw up plans
*they are drawn up every five years
*the process of drawing up the final plan is arcane and undemocratic and unfair
*the plan may be subject to corrupt decisions
*the wording is vague and sometimes contradictory
*the language is incomprehensible to the electorate
*rural families have to carry out expensive tests befiore they can build

His solutions are:
*20 year plans
*local referendum on development plans
*less opportunity for 3rd party objections
*simpler, clearer policies

I disagree with every point of his analysis of the problems apart from speeding up the process and making the wording clearer. I also disagree with his solutions other than simpler, clearer wording.

A 20 year plan is the worst idea. How could a plan drawn up in 1987 be of any use to this country today?

I love the emotional appeal that something thought up by the evil Brits can’t be of any use to us God-fearing Irish and our unique way of life. The Irish way of life: driving to B&Q in your landrover to buy a new wall mount for your telly so that you can watch the premiership on Sky.

I don’t like the planning process either but for different reasons and I would advocate different solutions.

I don’t know about evil Brits, myself I’ve always really liked the Irish, it’s mostly the Welsh I have trouble with.

His paragraph under HUMILIATION could have been written by me, that’s all………. and made me smile.

Some meritous points buried beneath self pitying polemic -no doubt inspired by a bruised ego over the Custom House objecting to a pet project, a pity really because there is enough there to have an objective debate if you could be bothered to battle through the ill conceived ranting.

indeed tommyt …………but how do you really feel about it?

Points i agree with
* more often than not pre-planning consultations are meaningless… planners wont give any indication of a like or dislike to proposal and invariable end with ‘put in the application and see how it goes’… useless….
* development plans are little different from the ones they replace… maybe glossier paper….
* vague, indifferent and inconsistent descriptions in development plans add only confusion and allow different planners adopt policies on a personal view point instead of a clear guideline.
* our planning system needs to be overhauled to become more transparent, fairer, and respectful to the application in a ‘hand in hand’ working relationship instead of the ‘behind closed doors’ adversarial system we commonly have…

Points i disagree with:
* 20 year development plans would not work for reasons described by Frank… thats why we have NSS and NDP
* since the introduction of the rural guidelines it has become a lot easier to advise clients of the probably outcome of their application, usually on first meeting….
* invalidations are invariably the agents cause… while frustrating, they are certainly not for no reason…
* need to vote on European directives… we have European representatives, thats what they are for….

@Frank Taylor wrote:

here’s what I took from his article:

I disagree with every point of his analysis of the problems apart from speeding up the process and making the wording clearer. I also disagree with his solutions other than simpler, clearer wording.

A 20 year plan is the worst idea. How could a plan drawn up in 1987 be of any use to this country today?

I love the emotional appeal that something thought up by the evil Brits can’t be of any use to us God-fearing Irish and our unique way of life. The Irish way of life: driving to B&Q in your landrover to buy a new wall mount for your telly so that you can watch the premiership on Sky.

I don’t like the planning process either but for different reasons and I would advocate different solutions.

The LUTS plan in Cork is more than 20 years old and was instrumental in the cities development and infrastructure – outstanding vision in the LUTS.

The Brits gave us some amazing infrastructure which the Free State government ran into the ground,ripped out and shut down.
Now we have to pay for re-building it all again.

This is getting Pythonesque.

You clearly described my last Saturday morning in Mahon Point Cork.:)

What is The Journal in which this first appeared?

‘Built Environment’ Volume 32, number 2

(the wonders of google)

Thanks sw101.

FTR, I Googled it already and got nothing but links to GM’s own blog. I asked the question because I suspected The Journal a supplement to The Farmer’s Journal. Apparently I was wrong.

My own feelings on the article would be broadly in line with Frank Taylor’s post above, but I’ve made it policy not to respond in detail to any article that includes the tired canard of Brit-bashing, so that’s all you’ll get from me!

Garry here,

The article was one of four which ran in the Farmers Journal. The second one was a rant about conservation – not about the need for it, but the hamfisted way in which the 2000 Act/ DoE and LAs have handled things for the past seven years. The third was a basic ‘how to’ for making planning applications which was, I think, rant free. I can’t remember what the fourth was – I wrote them a long time ago and am away from the office right now and can’t access the files.

Anyway. It’s funny how people respond to things. In an article THAT BASHES IRISH PLANNING WITH ITS EVERY SYLLABLE, a word of criticism of the British Local Authority/planning system cuases offence…

My point was that after independence we had the opportunity to introduce a system of public administration closer to the American or French models with seperatation of executive from legislative functions and ‘subsidiarity’ between central and local government. Instead, we opted to keep the system that had been in place before the treaty with a very strong centralised, civil service and a local authority system which is little more than an agency for national government.

The issue has been very much on the wing here in Ireland (I’m suspecting that the correspondents making the ‘Brit bashing’ comments are UK based? Irish based readers would, I think, be familiar with this well rehearsed argument) to the point that since the article was written, a newly elected cabinet is proposing a radical change to our Local Authority system. The Green Party element of the coalition had been proposing a London style mayor for Dublin, but since then I understand that they have moved away from this idea and, closer to the US/Continental model with elected mayors at every level of goverment, holding executive powers, etc. The Minister for the Environment is today (Thursday) briefing City and County Councillors of what he has in mind.

The persistence of the British system in Irish local government (and, by extension, planning) is, in my view, a real problem. Irish society is less tolerant of centralised authority. There is a strong desire for devolution of power here which, in its absense, is causing dysfunction in the delivery of local services.

Cheers

@GMiley wrote:

The article was one of four which ran in the Farmers Journal.

G-d I’m good.

Are the others available on-line, Garry? I’d be keen to see the conservation one, if possible. I suspect we’d be in agreement in many aspects of that.

ctestiphon

I’ve tried in the past to check out the IFJ pieces on line, but to no avail. I didn’t get to see the hard copies when they were published because I was away for an extended period in Japan and the US and sort of forgot about them really. I, obviously, have the original piece on my computer back in the office but won’t have access to it for a while (I travel a lot).

However, I do have stuff about conservation on my website: http://www.garrymiley.com, especially issue 11. I actually have a Masters Degree in building and urban conservation and was looking forward very much to the oportunity that the planning act would present when it came along in 2000. Unfortunately, I think the whole concept of the preservation of structures is being brought into disrepute by an administrative process that is seen as punitive when it comes to the protection of structures and – at least in the case of Limerick (a city I know something about) – is (I firmly believe this) is having a negative effect on what’s going on in the Georgian core.

I find that if, like me, one’s arguement is with the system and not with the consepts of conservation/energy efficency per se, you tend to to be labelled as anti-conservation or anti-energy-minded. Which means you have to try harder to get people to listen to exactly what it is you are saying.

Anyway, check the site out. It’s 50% tongue-in-cheek – I like a little fun and encourage witty comments – and 50% deadly serious.

Cheers Garry

Hey

On the point that we inherited our planning system from the British, would this not be due to the fact that the British planning system was held in high esteem and regarded by many as “best practice” for the time? Would it have been a good idea to alter our planning system at a time when the country was finding its feet in the wake of a civil war? I don’t think so and thats why there were no massive changes in legislation at the time with the exception of Bunreacht na hEireann (which is pretty major actually!) oh and I believe we were getting help from the united nations to keep the planning system from collapsing in the post British rule. (I’m not British or a unionist or anything!)

With regard to the remark on European Union law – we did vote, even if the author doesn’t remember, it was put before the people by referendum in May 1972 and 81% of people chose to subrogate our laws to a new and higher authority – the EU and I like to think that joining the EU improved life in Ireland. On SAC’s the author has a point. I believe that farmers should not be subject to as many restrictions on grazing and forestry.

Mr. Miley claims that people are “humiliated” when lodging a planning application, I think that is a bit of an exaggeration. The author criticizes “last minute requests for further information”: are the local authority not entitled to all relevant information relating to an application or should they just accept what you are willing to disclose? To whom is the author referring to as the “self appointed planning do-gooder organisations” Would one of these “do-gooder” organisations be An Taisce? I think you’ll find they are not self appointed but appointed by the Minister on a list of prescribed bodies, why if it wasn’t for those pesky do-gooders you could almost do anything you want, the article sounds like a scene from Scooby Doo rather than an article in a paper. But what, I ask, is wrong with wanting to do some good?

Now the “inner workings” where the author returns to the Scooby Doo fantasy land: the development plan and what an evil plan it is. The author gives the impression that every development plan is sub contracted to private consultants and that each costs approximately 150,000 Euro. You sought to be challenged and Mr. Miley I am challenging you on this fabrication. Where is the evidence? Although some planning authorities may sub contract small scale local area plans or area action plans in this manner, it is not what happens in the majority, and why is this the case? It is probably to do with the inherent under staffing of planning authorities which is also the reason for the aforementioned revelation the all planning applications take more than a year. With regard to “windfall rezoning” you might like to add that it is the elected representatives of the people, the councillors not the planners, who have partaken in such activity. Although I agree that at times the jargon could be toned down a bit

With regard to our national heritage I believe that it is worth protecting although clearly you have no appreciation for heritage, only what you, as an architect can build. You describe efforts to improve the quality of life as “guff” yet in the next paragraph you claim that we should be allowed to do “whatever it is we need to do to improve our families’ lives”. Is there any limit to the Macheavellian tactics that you imply or do the ends justify the means? I believe Hitler said something similar. You declare that people can seldom build their own house “unless they are prepared to spend thousands on architects’ fees” Is this intended as a joke? You are an architect right?

However Mr. Miley has the solutions to all our planning problems. His proposals include letting the “local plebiscite” vote on development plans – is this not the job of our elected representatives, the very voice of the “local plebiscite”? This fantastical arrangement may work in some small village but if it was required in large towns or cities it would nearly be as costly and cumbersome as a general election. He also proposes making these plans last 20 years. Insanity! That is to say that a plan prepared in 1988 or 1989 would still be applicable today. In 20 years the area which is planned for will have changed so much that the plan will be for a different time, a different village or town, a different country. Can you imagine how completely irrelevant a LAP for say Greystones that was prepared in 1988 would be today?

Its a pity i don’t have the next article entitled “solid advice on how to get planning permission approved” On the basis of the issues which I have raised I’ll bet its excellent, informed advice. By the way I am looking to build an incinerator beside a school with a river close by although I hear there is more money in radioactive waste disposal so I am keeping my options open. Having to apply to build a radioactive waste disposal facility on my own land, minding my own business is “humiliating” and don’t say anything about this or those pesky “do-gooders” in An Taisce might object. As you so eloquently put it “something needs doing” and you Mr. Miley are just the man.

I don’t mean this as a personal attack, just as a reaction to the article. Sorry if I offend you but that article pissed me off.

It would be hard to take anything Garry Miley says about planning seriously after seeing his recent TV series ‘Community Challenge’, which featured him and the female presenter driving around in big black SUVs – one EACH! An appalling image for a programme supposedly promoting community values and ethos.

Does anyone have any examples of Garry Mileys work, outside of the Community Challenge stuff?