This article is from page 6 of the 2006-03-28 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 6 JPG
THE County Manager has told councillors that their unanimous move to dismantle their ‘locals only’ policy on one-off housing departed from the National Spatial Strategy and was wrong in law.
County Manager, Alec Fleming, also stated that the councillors’ proposal was in breach of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and didn’t have sufficient regard to Ministerial guidelines.
In a 45-page report circulated to councillors, Mr Fleming said that their proposal “would result in a significant relaxation of rural housing policy that would undermine the ability of the County Development Plan to support the objectives of the Mid-West Regional Guidelines to support the growth of settlements.”
At last night’s March council meeting, councillors agreed to hold a special meeting on the issue.
Mr Fleming said that if the proposal succeeded, “it would remove the need for any landowner to show that they have links with the rural community and would not be consistent with the National Spatial Strategy.”
Mr Fleming said that the amendment undermined the ability of the plan to support the development of key services to provide a significant level of social, commercial and community centres in peripheral areas.
On the environmental impacts of the amendments, Mr Fleming said they would result in significant adverse effects.
At the Council’s September meeting last year, the members unanimously voted to pass two motions against the advice of management to amend the Clare County Development Plan 2005 in order to make it easier for applicants to build one-off homes.
In the plan, the council had sought to control the proliferation of one-off homes in large swathes of Clare by imposing a general ban on non-locals.
As part of the implementation of the non-local rule, the council demands from applicants cattle herd numbers, copies of birth certificates, school records and letters from parish priests to prove that they are local to the area.
However, in a proposed amendment unanimously adopted by councillors, those who own land in the area prior to 1999, but might not have any links with the area, would now qualify as being a local person entitling that person to planning permission.