Irish Rural Dwellers Association
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There’s no point in demonising IRDA, they are a lobby group, representing a widely held view. Their spokespeople make lengthy arguments for their case. Although they say that British planning rules are not appropriate for Ireland, they are not overtly anti-British. Our public representatives have gone far further in their anti-Briish comments. Healy-Rae really goes the furthest in saying “An Taisce has caused more destruction in south County Kerry than Hitler did in Europe during the last war”.
One of IRDA’s arguments is that “Each refusal for a permanent home is both a serious attack on an individual’s constitutional right as well as a personal tragedy”. The personal tragedy arises where someone has the funds to build a house (say 200-250K) but not to buy a house, (say 300-350K). The tragedy is that houses prices are too high. I think this is a temporary situation. We are increasing the housing stock by around 5% per year (100K houses) and this can’t continue indefinitely. Historically, it has usually been more expensive to build than to buy and once we return to this equilibrium, the housing tragedy focus will be on negative equity.
All organisations have fellow travellers who are unable to see beyond their own viewpoint and are often also unable to keep personality out of it.
In essence the IRDA have called for a complete free for all save for some elevated areas as they put it; they have previously called for the abolition of restrictions in SAC’s and areas of outstanding natural beauty presumably because they are not elevated examples would include the Shannon Callows or most of the nations coast.
Healey Rae is a thug and a shameless populaist who in his early dail period posed with Star glamour models to boost his profile; he is sadly not unique in his quest to retain power on the clientist model.
The assertion that there is an attack on personal liberty is non-sensical and the latest Dartmouth Square episode should illustrate that it is now landlord’s and not tenants that are starting to cite Michael Davvitt and the days of the land league.
In relation to affordability the sites that are farmed off or sold as developed properties are not cheap and in Kenmare one can expect to pay excess €500,000 for a half acre site that secured planning on the basis of local need. This is an industry and the IRDA should be listened to no more than a union can be objective on the eve of a national pay deal.
At 35,000 one offs per year local government outside the main urban centres will become economically unviable in a short few years unless a punative council tax regime is introduced.
The tinkers have the right idea – it is the perfect solution and proves that one can have one’s cake and eat it. Simply drive your one-off into town to increase housing density when needed and, subject to the vagaries of the nation’s shifting demographics and market economics, pull your one-off back to a desolate part of the countryside when deemed necessary. The government will actively fund this type of demographic obfuscation through all sorts of cultural and economic initiatives. Instead of talking about these issues, Ireland’s architectural comunity should be putting their heads together to design such mobile one-off units that would have a ‘plug-and-play’ design, by which I mean they could simply plug into the local services infrastructure of a rural town or city and then move on to rebalance the nation’s demographics when needed. 32 county compatability would, of course, be desireable.
Don’t forget Sasana which seems to absorb much of the Rathkeale contingent
Seriously I wouldn’t compare travellers with one off houses but the stance between North and South could not be more pronounced
Can anyone advise on what the offical stance is on politcal interference on planning apps.
I am doign a study on a house that got planning ( when it really should not have) due to the hard work of a certain TD! Local rep’s are left view files at certain stages when others are not, surely this is wrong & must be changed?He sure did, from my discussions with other planners in the area, this is standard procedure, the planners are obviously intimidated by the politicians etc!
is there anything in the planning to forbid such communications?@zelemon wrote:
He sure did, from my discussions with other planners in the area, this is standard procedure, the planners are obviously intimidated by the politicians etc!
is there anything in the planning to forbid such communications?no.
seeing as the board of councillors are the planners bosses, its not illogical for a planners to feel “intimidated” if there is a councillor sniffing around a file.
I have lots of experience of applications that would not have been successful without political influence. Some interference was required to curb over zealous planners, while other interference was required to give the application any hope of success. Swings and roundabouts in my view.
Planners use their CDP as their bible. They refer to regional and national plans also, and to a smaller extent local area plans. Theres no way every eventuality can be guided by these plans so there is still a large amount decision that is left to the opinion of the planner.
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