Mr. Phil Hogan T.D., Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, with his colleague Ms. Jan O’Sullivan T.D., Minister for Housing and Planning, today Friday 15th June 2012 announced the publication of the Local Area Plans – Guidelines for Planning Authorities for public consultation. “Communities are at the heart of our planning system, and should be integrally involved in planning for the sustainable future of their communities”, Minister Hogan said. “To that end, and to ensure that we practice what we preach, we are publishing this consultation draft of our statutory guidelines to allow stakeholders and the public to comment on the guidelines”. The Ministers advised that following the 6 week consultation process ending on 27th July 2012, a final version of the Guidelines will be prepared for publication under Section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 later this year.
The aim of the guidelines is to support planning authorities in preparing and implementing Local Area Plans that will provide for the sustainable development of communities having regard to realistic assessments of need for future development informed by wider county and city plans and regional planning guidelines. Minister O’Sullivan welcomed the provisions in the new guidelines which implement relevant recommendations of the recent Planning Review as well as correcting the errors of the past identified by the Mahon Tribunal, and in moving towards a stronger, more evidence-based planning system. “The past decade has changed the face of Ireland, of our cities, towns and villages. We need to ensure that, from now on, all our decisions about the country we want to live in will be based on the needs of our communities and will be in line with our national objectives for building a sustainable future. The Guidelines specific exclude the practice of developers proposing Local Area Plans, one of the key recommendations of the recent planning review. In future, collaboration on the development of Local Area Plans will be drive by the community, not one vested interest.”, the Minister said.
“Since last year, every City and County Development Plan has a core strategy that reaches up to the National Spatial Strategy and Regional Planning Guidelines, and that flows down to inform the objectives of Local Area Plans. These Guidelines provide support to planning authorities in extending the positive influence of the core strategy approach into local area planning, creating a more cost effective and community centred basis for planning essential public services and co-ordinating scarce public and private investment at a difficult time”.
The new Guidelines provide, for the first time, statutory guidance to planning authorities on how to deliver on their mandatory obligations to prepare Local Area Plans for all towns with population of over 5,000, as well as the many forthcoming reviews of around 350 local area plans called for as a result of the planning reform process being driven by the Ministers under the Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2010. “This review process is an excellent opportunity to revisit some of the excesses of the Celtic Tiger era and I intend to work closely with my officials and the planning authorities to ensure that our planning system is fit for purpose and meeting real needs at a community level. A key element of this is our commitment to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our planning system by having a smaller number of local plans but at the same time significantly improving the quality of those local plans remaining into the future”, Minister Hogan said.
All local area plans must include clear maps for the intended zoning and development of the area with a statement of the physical, social and economic objectives for the area. The Guidelines particularly highlight the importance of building a strong consensus for the plans through local consultation, of the need to consider the financing and delivery mechanisms for the implementation of the plans, and of the requirements for environmental assessments to comply with relevant EU Directives. A best practice manual has also been developed to offer additional support to planning authorities in developing these plans.
The consultation draft of the guidelines are available on www.environ.ie and comments should be returned to the Department by 27th July 2012.