Consistency and speed to the detriment of Quality and Sustainability

PB July-August 2023 July-August 2023 67

The history of planning legislation is of

a balance between centralised powers,

typically emanating from the Minister [and

latterly from the OPR]; and local authorities’

powers, which in turn have been divided

between ofﬁcials’ and elected councillors’

The Planning and Development

(Amendment) Bill, 2022

The Planning and Development (Amendment)

Bill, 2022 attempts to bring clarity to the legal

underpinnings of the planning system which are

currently scattered across numerous laws,

regulations, and court decisions (at both

national and EU levels).

Historical balance between

central and local government

The history of planning legislation is of a balance

between centralised powers, typically

emanating from the Minister and latterly from

the Oce of the Planning Regulator (OPR); and

local authorities’ powers, which in turn have

been divided between ocials’ and elected

councillors’. Too often powers exercisable at

either a centralised or local level, have simply

not been exercised properly, and many would

say local government has not justiﬁed the trust

that underpins the delegation of such powers as

planning-permission (in ocials) and zoning (in

elected councillors).

The Bill is a signiﬁcant salvo at taking back

some of the powers of local authorities by

requiring their deference to centralised

standards. Whether the requirements will be

observed by headstrong local authorities

remains to be shown. Equally uncertain is the

appetite of the OPR to exercise zealously its

powers or of any Minister to sanction councillors

in a delinquent local authority who might be

party colleagues. Long-standing and egregious

failures of planning, including the sprawl of

Dublin and one-o housing, have been largely

perpetrated in contradiction to national policy

due to enforcement inaction rather than action,

with such consistency that that it must be

deemed to be policy inaction.

Consistency and speed to

the detriment of Quality

and Sustainability

The hands of former

Attorney General

Paul Gallagher and of

the property industry

are all over the

Planning Bill

By J Vivian Cooke

Unclear if local authorities will

defer to the centralisation

The Bill carries forward the often-unenforced

logical impetus of the existing system. It is

based on a clear hierarchy for strategic planning

and policy in which subsidiary plans are obliged

to be materially consistent with all policies that

are above them in the hierarchy. The hierarchy

descends from National to Regional to Local

Authority to Local. Under the Bill, the Minister

will set out certain aspects of important policy

in National Planning Statements which contain

directives that purport to be binding, termed

National Planning Policies and Measures

(NPPM).

New planning procedures

Regional assemblies must draft Regional Spatial

and Economic Strategies (RSES) that are

“materially consistent” (the term is signiﬁcant:

“comply with” would have been stronger,

requiring, as it does, positive action) with the

speciﬁc directives in NPPMs, and support

overall government goals; while both national

and regional documents aim to coerce often

recalcitrant local authorities in their individual

Development Plans which drive the planning

permissions they issue.

The Bill sets out a process common for all

actions provided for in law which, the drafters

fear, might not necessarily be observed in the

political process. Each individual step, in both

policy-drafting and permission-decision-

making, is explicitly laid out in comprehensive

step-by-step detail. The requirements for

consultation, notiﬁcation, review, compliance,

appeal and deadlines are all stipulated in

statutory process maps.

Within these policy constraints, local

authorities can, as now, give eect to national

standards in ways that they deem appropriate

to local circumstances; this may be valuable in

preserving the democratic legitimacy of the

planning process and, in addition, because local

authorities have better knowledge of conditions

on the ground.

Compliance and Enforcement

Errant authorities, whose subsidiary document

Pul Gllgher: hnds ll over Bill

ENVIRONMENT