Bungalow Dilemma

I have to agree with asdasd the priority has got to be the local buyers, if people are up to their necks in debt to buy second homes, they shouldn’t be. The priority must be affordable housing within towns to take development pressures off the countryside, particularly in scenic areas.

@Owen a fan of Marian Harkin wrote:

http://scripts.ireland.com/newspaper/breaking/regularvote.cfm?pollid=1846

No. All taxes are bad in themselves. But these taxes would destroy the holiday homes production business. and where are holiday homes produced? In the deprived west of Ireland in remote areas. Who is building them? Poor people in remote areas that the IDA and Enterprise Ireland will never do anything for. Who will be thrown out of work if the industry collapses? See previous answer. Does anyone ever engage their brain before coming up with suggestions like these?

The wonderfuf free market is developing the west. Populating it gradually. Providing work. Providing jobs. giving rich people a chance to get out of the pressure cooker in Ireland rather than going through the harassment of going to Spain and all the associated health and social (I almost said welfare) benfits.

But greedy D4 civil servants want to block it for their own selfish ends. They can’t get into “work” in empty enough trains. They can’t get the money to produce more reports on decline in the West of Ireland. They want more money and promotions to go to the IDA. They make me sick. they should all be sacked.
owen, marionharkins ireland

Any thoughts on this extract I got from http://www.platform11.org

I totally agree and the zoning in the current Donegal development plan is a recipe for disaster, as opposed to recognising ‘town centres’ as every other plan does, Donegal has come up with the idea of a ‘community facility’. These community facilities which can be a single building such as a church, School or even an obscure cult’s gospel hall are deeemed as providing sufficient ‘critical mass’ to support residential development, even though in most cases the infrastructural support from roads, water and retail do not exist. The bending of the generally accepted town centre definition has without doubt led to the figures that you have presented.

Elsewhere I definitely agree totally with your reading of ‘the local needs game’. Which is most damaging in Gealtacht areas and proving entirely counter-productive to the excellent work being done in preserving our native langauge. On examination it is often clear that many if not most applications are a thinly veiled cover for what amount to applications for holiday homes as the financial circumstances of the applicants and the scale of the properties proposed simply don’t add up. The best laugh I had in ages was an aplication for ‘Bungalow with atrium and ancilliary structures’

@Spitzer wrote:

What is the problem with bungalows they hardly cause as much impact as highrise towers, I think bungalows are quaint and the gardens can be really nice.

Impacts are relative to their setting and in an urban area there are always specific sites that can accomodate a tall building without negatively impacting on the City as a whole. Landmark buildings can work very well in the overall urban environment similarly additional dwellings can work very well in specific places in rural locations.

The problem I have with one-off houses is not with bungalow design per se but rather the indiscriminate placing of one-off houses in areas that should not see any development. The areas I am talking about are always zoned agriculture or high amenity, there is nothing worse in my opinion than any house being inserted into a pristine landscape and this is worst when a badly designed ‘please look at me’ type design is sited on an elevated site no where near any other development.

What I can’t understand is how some elements are prepared to throw the zoning model completely out the window, if someone proposed an industrial development for a residential area there would be uproar with cries of this contravenes the zoning inappropriate and the area can’t take it etc. Yet it appears that in large swathes of Ireland you can speculatively develop planning permissions for sale or build holiday homes in totally inappropriate places. Yet it appears that the only people who notice this are returned emmigrants and tourists.

Bundoran is the Amusement arcade capital of Ireland it is simply a rough spot with the wrong type of tourists, you just wouldn’t let your kids out there in the evenings. Ballyshannon for no one knows why has always just been a rough sort of a kip.

Sligo now theres a nice town or Donegal Town even.

I guessed the reason why bundoran has been largly seen as this up to now is probably been more to do with the fact that it was probably the cheapest and closest resort to the north and hence why it is so popular with northern tourists. it also so happens that the less well off in the north seem to live on the interfaces of sectarian segregration where the most trouble used to and still does to a lesser extent happen. therefore especially around the 12th of july and also for all the summer (marching season) it became a refuge of sorts. all that said the main reason I see for all this “development” along vwith the tax insentives offered by the government it was probably slightly consumer driven as well since most of the tourists who stayed in bundoran up till now stayed in mobile homes or guest houses and I think our increased economic prosperity has also increased expectations in terms of accomadation and service.

All that said bundoran centre has had a facelift in the last few years even if its ourskirts are threatening to take over the whole of leitrim. the other good thing about the by-bass being built around both ballyshannon and bundoran for bundoran is that it may now define a limit to where the development can spread (still too far all the same).

Huge fall in NI rural bungalow permissions
From ireland.com12:24Friday, 1st June, 2007
Regulations designed to stem the incidence of “bungalow blitz” in the North have seen a 90 per cent drop in succesful planning applications for one-off rural housing since being introduced last year.

The regulation known as Planning Policy Statement 14 (PPS 14) has cut the number of sucessful applications for single dwellings in the countryside from 5, 655 at the same time last year to about 500 this year.

The measure amounts to a blanket ban on new houses in the countryside, with only a handful of exceptions.

PPS14 was introduced in March 2006, and since then there have been 407 replacement dwellings and less then 100 in other categories like farm buildings.

This compared to 5,655 the year before the ministerial order was brought in.

Assemblyman Patsy McGlone, a long-standing opponent to the measure who obtained the latest figures, claimed people who wanted to live where they were brought up “are being denied that chance because of PPS14”.

However, Green Party assemblyman Brian Wilson said most new homeowners did not use local schools or other facilities and contributed little to the rural community.

“The vast majority of these buildings are speculative buildings. They are built on roadsides, totally destroying the countryside,” he said.

“They require septic tanks, water supplies, and the land is cut up to provide that. “Most of the people buying them are nothing to do with the countryside [but are] people moving out from the towns.”

Good to see Belfast taking the lead!

Apparently there is a lot of concern that the new devolved goverment in NI might row back on this welcome change- freind of mine is doing his dissertation on the subject which should be interesting.

@ake wrote:

Awesome. Bravo Northern Ireland, proving it can be done.

Great for Northern Ireland. not so great for the Republic. I can see an awful lot of Northerners who have been refused permission coming down here and taking advantage of our lax planning regulations.

@henno wrote:

obviously our sustainable rural guidelines would hinder the vast majority from recieving permission in the republic. They may obtain permission in areas where the local authorities want to encourage population growth, but certainly not in areas under high pressure from urban develpment.

Its strange that you would have the opinion that our planning laws are lax when theres an EU commision invistigating whether they are too strict or not….. :confused:

ROFL, LOL – clearly henno, you are trolling. Enough unsustainable one-off shite was already obliterating the country, particylarly the west coast, prior to the govt’s relaxing of planning laws about 3 years ago. When I was a child, driving west from Galway, after Barna there were occasional settlements on the coast-road. Because of the ribbon development and what I term “sub-ruralisation”, that entire stretch all the way to Carraroe is now a 60 km per hour speed restricted zone – an interesting illustrationn of how not to develop IMO.

The news from the 6 counties is depressing – the island really is on a race to the bottom in terms of environmental protection. In this case what is also interesting is the council involved in having challenged that guideline, and that the main party on the same council often tries to portray their environmental credentials… Well fellows, we can’t blame the brits on this one because of the 21 seats on Omagh council, 10 are occupied by Sinn Fein :rolleyes:

Is it just me, or is there a trend emerging here that when SF have any power, they are prone to making the anti-environment choice? I am thinking not just of Omagh, but also of SF’s dominance of DCC while presiding over the billboards scandal… :confused:

FYI – From Omagh website:

Omagh District Council was established in 1973 following the publication of the McCrory Report on the administration of local government in Northern Ireland. The plethora of Urban, Rural and County councils and Corporations which administered local government in Northern Ireland were replaced by 26 City, Borough and District Councils of which Omagh is one.

In 1973 there were 20 Councillors but following a review of local government boundaries in the early 1980’s, the number of Councillors representing the district was increased to 21.

Omagh District Council consists of three electoral areas, Omagh Town, Mid Tyrone and West Tyrone. Each of the three district electoral areas return seven councillors to serve for a four year period. The next election is due to take place in May 2009. The election of Chairman and Vice Chairman of the Council takes place annually in June. Details of members are as follows:

OMAGH TOWN

, Cllr Sean Begley Р(Sinn F̩in)
, Cllr Ross Hussey – (UUP)
, Cllr Josephine Deehan – (SDLP)
, Cllr Patrick McGowan MBE – (INDEPENDENT)
, Cllr Martin McColgan Р(Sinn F̩in)
, Cllr Clive McFarland – Vice Chairman of the Council – (DUP)
, Cllr Johnny McLaughlin – (INDEPENDENT)
MID TYRONE

, Cllr Sean Clarke Р(Sinn F̩in)
, Cllr Charles Chittick – (DUP)
, Cllr Sharon O’Brien – (Sinn Féin)
, Cllr Declan McAleer Р(Sinn F̩in)
, Cllr Seamus Shields – (SDLP)
, Cllr Bert Wilson – Chairman of the Council – (UUP)
, Cllr Anne Marie Fitzgerald Р(Sinn F̩in)
WEST TYRONE

, Cllr Thomas Buchanan MLA – (DUP)
, Cllr Peter Kelly Р(Sinn F̩in)
, Cllr Patrick McDonnell – (SDLP)
, Cllr Allan Rainey MBE – (UUP)
, Cllr Ann Quinn Р(Sinn F̩in)
, Cllr Frankie Donnelly Р(Sinn F̩in)
, Cllr Barry McElduff MLA Р(Sinn F̩in)