Irishplanningnews.ie

Kildare county Council’s decision to grant permission for a large scale extension of the successful Kildare Outlet Village has been appealed to An Bord Pleanala by a number of other retail interests in the locality including the Whitewater Shopping Centre and Tescos.  An Taisce have also appealed the decision.

An Bord Pleanala have overturned the decision of Dublin City Council to grant permission for amendments to an existing planning permission for a 7 storey office building on the south side of St. Stephen’s Green (‘Canada House’).  The amendments would have increased the floor area by just over 1,000sq.m. 

An Taisce appealed the decision to An Bord Pleanala.  The An Bord Pleanala Inspector recommended a refusal for two reasons relating to visual impact.

The Board considered that the proposed amendments “would introduce an obtrusive and visually dominant structure into this historic streetscape” and “the increased prominence and overelaborate design at fifth and sixth floor levels would be inappropriate”. Permission was therefore refused because the proposed development would seriously injure the visual amenities of the area.

The An Taisce report on planning in Ireland claims that there was enough zoned land at the height of the boom to cater for a doubling of the entire population — up to 8m people.
A review of planning across 34 city and county councils found that in 2008 42,000 hectares were zoned for residential purposes — enough for 4m extra people on top of the 4.4m population at that time.

An Taisce further claims that 40% of the €75bn property portfolio transferred to Nama was categorised as “development land” which will be reclassified to agriculture over the coming years. This will result in the value of Nama’s development land plummeting from a paper figure of €30bn to a single-digit figure, costing tens of billions in losses for taxpayers over generations.

Donegal was found to have had the worst planning record. An Taisce found Donegal had about 2,250 hectares of residential land in 2010, enough for a population increase of 180,000. However, half of planning permissions over the past decade were granted on unzoned land.

An Taisce subsequently had to republish the report when a significant error was pointed out in terms of how the indicators used to analyse the councils were applied.