Impact of the Construction Sector downturn on the Planning Bureaucracy

[alonso]

not 100% sure... what about a porch?

[gaffer falls]

Put underworked planning officials on a three day week

[cactusflower]

I heard that Kildare Co Co sacked 90 temporary staff recently, I don´t know how many of them are planners. On the admin side, people could be moved into Social Welfare, where they are of course desperately short of staff.

Trained planners should be useful, but at the moment I can´t for the life of me think what for. It will come to me in time.

Alonso, as usual that post is the biggest load of hooey that it would be possible to write. Sixty hour weeks (ha!). When was it possible to get hold of a Dublin planner after 3.30 on a Friday ?

A lot of planners are now being moved into enforcement. That will mean that they can go around telling developers the porch is in the wrong place and the building must be knocked down. At least this will generate some work for unemployed builders.

[/etc]

An English resident *****was given permission to build a large, prominent house near me, subject to nine conditions. He ignored them all and built what looks like a bungalow to the rear without permission.
I complained to the county council who sent him a letter; he then applied for retention which he received without any bother.
Why bother with planning rules when they are not enforced?
*****

there was a building site across the road not more than 30 meters away from where i lived. they were pouring concrete from midnight to 4am in the morning. called the gard twice. first time they said they would send someone to take a look at whats going on. the noise never stopped. called second time and they said they could do nothing about it.

wrote to the county coucil the next morning to file a formal written complaint. got a reply from them that they would send an inspector to investigate. 3 days later, the same concreting work went on.

planning permission my *ss.

[alonso]

Alonso, as usual that post is the biggest load of hooey that it would be possible to write. Sixty hour weeks (ha!). When was it possible to get hold of a Dublin planner after 3.30 on a Friday ?

More Planners Needed to Cope With Growth | News + Publications | Irish Planning Institute

More Planners Needed to Cope With Growth

Thursday, June 07, 2007

More professional planners are urgently needed to cope with continued economic development, population growth and new environmental challenges, according to a Census of Planners in Ireland published by the Irish Planning Institute (IPI).

The Census, the first such study in 10 years, showed that there were around 1,000 professional planners working in the country up to the end of 2006: 600 in local government, 100 approximately in other areas of the public sector and over 300 in private practice.

But with only approximately 25 per cent of those in local government working in the area of forward planning and only five per cent in enforcement because of the pressures elsewhere in the planning system, the study concludes “it is clear the system remains reactive with much work remaining left undone in these areas.”


Highlighting the lack of resources in the area of enforcement, the study adds: “Enforcement is the most under resourced area of the planning service and a source of continued frustration for the public, particularly in the area of unfinished housing estates, quarries and other unauthorised developments that are seen as ‘bad neighbours’”.

The IPI report states: “Any perception that the planning system at local government level is well resourced versus 10 years ago is therefore largely untrue due to these huge increases in workloads in terms of volume, diversity and complexity and coupled with the fact that the planning service was coming from such a low base.”

In the context of a strongly growing population and many social, economic and environmental challenges, it is clear that the need for proper planning is more acute than it ever was. The public now demand that planning is fully recognised as much more than a rigid regulatory function and instead a key shaper of our future at all spatial levels.

The IPI points out that planning applications jumped by 74,000 (or 177 per cent) in the ten years between 1996 and 2006. And while the number of planners employed by local authorities increased by over 200% during that time, any gain was effectively eliminated by the increased complexity of applications and the level of pre-planning consultation being delivered as against 10 years ago and this is “before the demands arising from forward planning and enforcement are considered”.

The Census report also highlights how:
• The Planning & Development Act 2000 and associated regulations and new requirements such as the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive have placed enormous additional responsibility on planning authorities.

• A continuous flow of policy documents and guidelines from central government (such as Windfarm Guidelines, Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines, Apartment Guidelines, Retail Guidelines etc) has put further pressure on planners

• Regional Planning Guidelines and their implementation particularly for the Gateways, although welcome and necessary, also draw on the resources of local authorities.

At the same time, there is an increasing level of expectation from the general public – and from public representatives – in terms of the planning function. This manifests itself in relation to pre-planning enquiries, public viewing of files and queries to planning departments on a wide variety of matters. “There is no doubt that the planning office is the most public office of any local authority.” states the report.

The study concludes: “Every effort has been made in recent years to deliver a good planning service. A stage has now been reached however where some element of additional staffing is required to bring equilibrium to the situation. The existing situation where some staff are by default carrying unreasonable work burdens and working under severe pressure must be addressed.”

Launching the Census today, Mr Henk van der Kamp, President of the IPI, said: “The requirements on the planning system in the next decade are going to be different than in the past. As Ireland has been coping with population growth of on average more than 60,000 each year, we require to build more houses in brownfield, high density developments and less houses in greenfield, low density developments.”

“Higher density, brownfield development requires a much greater input of planner skills (and those of other professions) in the form of local area plans, mixed use development formats, higher density development, public transport based strategies and infrastructure led development. This is the main reason why we require more planners today and into the future.”

The report recommends that the planning authorities must now be looked at again in terms of staffing structures and levels. It is suggested that each planning department be “resource audited” under a set of criteria to be determined and organised by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government with the agreement of the City/County Managers.

It sets out detailed recommendations on how the planning system could be improved, including that a Senior Planner should be employed in the three county councils that do not have a post at that level at present, namely Carlow County Council, Waterford County Council and Kerry County Council.

The study concludes that it is not satisfactory that no planners are employed in a Government Department other than the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government. It strongly recommends that this must be addressed without delay in departments such as Education, Transport, Enterprise, Tourism and others that are required to work closely with the planning process.

“This study is a balanced ‘health check’ of the local authority planning service but a more detailed review as suggested needs to take into account many issues, such as efficiency and the need for the increased use of information technology, as the Institute recognises that additional staff numbers alone is not the answer.” stated Mr Gordon Daly, IPI council member and editor of the Census.

He added: “Any planning department is now a team or multidisciplinary environment comprising planners, other professional/technical staff and administrators and this collaborative approach needs to extend to any review of the system by the key stakeholders.”

Mr van der Kamp stated: “As Ireland develops into a mature economy people expect quality streetscapes, quality buildings, quality spaces and quality transport. Ironically, the need for the better quality urban environment is not only a luxury that our society can now afford, but also a pressing need driven by environmental and economic concerns. Spatial planning is no longer seen as a way to control the excesses of the private market, but as a way to ensure that society achieves the economic and environmental efficiency in the built environment that are needed to face the challenges in the future ahead particularly in the area of climate change.”

Cactus, all i have to fall back on in this debate are the facts and 1st hand experience of the system.