Donegal is tops again

muffler

Nice to see that Donegal topped the charts in The 9 worst councils in Ireland’s planning system chart just released today. I always knew we were winners but its nice to see it in print (from a pile of tree huggers}

As Bord Failte used to say - "Up here it's different"

GetWithIt

They've a pretty thick skin in Donegal Planning. I doubt this will really register.

It certainly won't have any repercussions. This is the way Donegal people like their Planning process, opaque at best.

Following on from the report of a couple of weeks ago where Donegal was one of only 8 town and County Councils not to submit their Development Plans to the Dept of the Environment.

The Senior Executive Planner commented in the local papers that by not complying with the directives of the Dept they actually were complying: Ultimately we'll do (or not do) whatever we want and there's nothing you can do about it. And it seems to be true.

deman

All you've gotta do is look at the way Letterkenny expanded over the last 15 years. No vision whatsoever. Has to be the worst planned town in Ireland if not Europe.

Harps

The west coast around Gweedore, Ardara etc. is another example, ruined with ugly and out of place houses littered everywhere you look. Most are empty holiday homes, there's no planning or regulation and no consideration to the fact its making the place look like an American suburb. Compare it to Britain where the countryside and small rural towns are protected and have a bit of character. A bit late to have a review of it all when the damage has already been done :rolleyes:

donegal_road

we all know who to thnak for that

JupiterKid

Letterkenny is a perfect example of how land use planning in Donegal is a total disaster. The town must be among the worst planned in the developed world.

It is a sprawling mess.

Cee-Jay-Cee

An F- well at least it wasnt an NG...you have to look at the positive aspects of everything.

There will never be the level of building there was during the 'seltick tiger' in the forseeable future and even if it does pick up the countryside and towns are so littered with irregular sites/buildings that it wont make any difference where new properties are built.

DoneDL

“While corrupt former politicians such as Padraig Flynn (pictured) have brought the planning system into disrepute, unseen low-level local cronyism and patronage has had an even greater adverse effect on planning policy implementation.”

Donegal came last. By way of illustration of its poor performance, Donegal had approximately 2,250 hectares of residential zoned land in 2010, sufficient for an additional population of 180,000 people. Despite this, approximately 50% of all residential planning permissions in Donegal over the past decade were granted on unzoned land. These trends are symptomatic of a wider systems failure in which counties Donegal, Roscommon Leitrim and Kerry perform worst.

Says it all really.

dontom

Name them... Shame them !!!

muffler

dontom wrote: »

Name them... Shame them !!!

Name and shame who?

dontom

Not the planning system... The planners...
Its not the system, its the people working for the system... Are you asking for names ? You get them on the councils web site

salonfire

It would be impossible to make planning work in Donegal

Can you imagine the uproar if the Council rejected one-off housing and encouraged people to live in sustainable villages and towns.

Everywhere you look in the countryside is absoulatly littered with houses.

How can broadband, water, public transport be provided economically to houses spread out like butter throughout the entire county.

Donegal people have themselves to blame

muffler

dontom wrote: »

Are you asking for names ? You get them on the councils web site

No, I wasn't asking for names. I was looking for you to clarify who you were referring to when you said "Name them... Shame them". As you say the names are on the website and thats where they can stay as I certainly dont want to see any names posted here.

muffler

One of the main pitfalls identified by An Taisce was the sheer volume of land zoned for housing. Just so people know it's the elected members of the council who make the decisions on zoning and not the planners.

Lands have been repeatedly rezoned against the best advice and recommendations of the planners. Its a sad indictment of local government that unqualified people have the power to overrule the professionals who are employed to ensure the proper and sustainable planning for the county.

A good example of this was about 4 or 5 years ago when the elected members, against the strong recommendations of the planners, decided to rezone agricultural land where the by-pass was proposed for the twin towns. The net result of this was the value of the land to be acquired for the by-pass rocketed from €12 million to over €90 million.

Harps

salonfire wrote: »

It would be impossible to make planning work in Donegal

Can you imagine the uproar if the Council rejected one-off housing and encouraged people to live in sustainable villages and towns.

Everywhere you look in the countryside is absoulatly littered with houses.

How can broadband, water, public transport be provided economically to houses spread out like butter throughout the entire county.

Donegal people have themselves to blame

Yeah amongst other things the non existent planning policy has killed any chance of most of the county getting services like broadband, you can't possibly expect a private company to go to the expense of providing proper broadband when most of the county is made up of unplanned one off housing. Same goes for public transport, simply not sustainable when there's no population centres yet people constantly complain about it. As you say though there's no one person to blame, its the overall tradition that if you own land you have free will to do whatever you want with it, a noble enough idea but in reality it only leads to the mess the place is in at the moment

muffler

Just to point out that we are not going to allow speculative or potentially libelous comments to be posted. I'm after deleting one post so lets leave those type of comments out of the debate and concentrate on the issues raised by An Taisce as reported here.

Mr_A

Democracy in action- ultimately this is exactly what people want. That said I'd love to see a comprehensive analysis of the worst decisions and expose the planning record of those that voted for them.

Noreen1

Harps wrote: »

Yeah amongst other things the non existent planning policy has killed any chance of most of the county getting services like broadband, you can't possibly expect a private company to go to the expense of providing proper broadband when most of the county is made up of unplanned one off housing. Same goes for public transport, simply not sustainable when there's no population centres yet people constantly complain about it. As you say though there's no one person to blame, its the overall tradition that if you own land you have free will to do whatever you want with it, a noble enough idea but in reality it only leads to the mess the place is in at the moment

Are you suggesting that Companies such as broadband providers dictate, or even have an input into planning procedures?:eek:

I own a one-off house, in a rural area.

I paid for my own telegraph poles, and ESB poles.
I have my own water supply, and septic tank system.
I also have a private road into the property. Total cost to the state or any private Company - nil!
I don't live there - it's my retirement home.
The house I currently live in, in a village, will be passed to one of my children, or sold and the proceeds divided, depending on circumstances in the future.(What Country my children end up living in being the main consideration, at the moment:mad:)

As to public transport? It wasn't available when I built my home, and it's not available now. Nor do I expect to need to avail of it when I retire. There are sufficient shops nearby to service my needs, and schools etc. will not matter.

On the other hand - developments in urban areas can, and do, put serious strain on existing water and sewage systems, requiring upgrades that, all to often, were/are budgeted for after building commences.Or, in the case of unfinished estates, only partially completed, etc.

Had much of the re-zoning not occurred, we would have a few less ghost estates now. (We might also have had less of a property "boom" - and bust!)

Personally, I believe the answer is common sense, rather than adhering to any particular ideology.
If people want to live in their traditional communities, and are willing to pay for their services, I see no reason why anyone has the right to dictate otherwise.
On the other hand, where people choose to live in urban areas, they have every right to do so, but extra strain on resources needs to be planned for - and put in place before building commences.

How much of that work should be paid for by developers, and how much by local authorities needs to be addressed, though.
It would be unreasonable, for example, to expect people who pay for these services when they buy/bought a new home, and then go on to pay the same rate of water charges, and household tax, as those who had these services provided by local authorities, funded by general taxation.

Bear in mind that water infrastructure etc. have often been put in place by these communities, rather than the local authorities, in the first place.
For example, my parents paid over £500 in the early 60s to pipe water to their home.(In a rural area) That was a substantial outlay, at the time. Then they paid water rates for the privilege of taking water from a lake that they part-owned, through pipes that they paid for, and laid themselves.:eek: I sincerely doubt that people who are in the same position now would take kindly to suggestions that they are a drain on resources. I certainly don't appreciate it.
Some people who live in urban areas, who live in new developments, will also have contributed to improvements to infrastructure, through works that developers were required to carry out, in order to get planning permission. These costs were obviously passed on to the eventual purchasers of the property.


In short - it is not as simple as blaming one-off housing. Urban planning has contributed significantly to the problem.
There is also the issue of the freedom to choose where you want to live - whether that's a one-off house, a house in an existing urban area, or a brand-new town, around a particular, sustainable growth industry.

It would be nice if it was all black and white - but it never has been.

GetWithIt

muffler wrote: »

One of the main pitfalls identified by An Taisce was the sheer volume of land zoned for housing. Just so people know it's the elected members of the council who make the decisions on zoning and not the planners.

Lands have been repeatedly rezoned against the best advice and recommendations of the planners. Its a sad indictment of local government that unqualified people have the power to overrule the professionals who are employed to ensure the proper and sustainable planning for the county.

A good example of this was about 4 or 5 years ago when the elected members, against the strong recommendations of the planners, decided to rezone agricultural land where the by-pass was proposed for the twin towns. The net result of this was the value of the land to be acquired for the by-pass rocketed from €12 million to over €90 million.

Apparently there was no excess zoning of land in Donegal. The Overzoning criteria was omitted from the overall score. The Local Councillors feel that if it hadn't then Donegal would have gone from an F to an A.

"In our original calculations, we felt that Indicator 1 (Overzoning) gave unfair advantage to City Councils, because as cities are mostly zoned, it is significantly more difficult to overzone a city. So we only counted the other 7 indicators. Unfortunately in finalising the report we omitted to explain this.
......
Local Councillor Dessie Larkin told Highland Radio he wants the report withdrawn and an apology issued to the county.

"I've always said that it was a distorted representation of the facts surrounding the planning process and it's obvious that this is also [the case] nationally," he said.