Irish students of town (urban) or country
(rural) planning receive an education almost evangelical in pushing concepts
such as high density development, liveable streets, sustainable development,
mixed use development, with public transport, walking and cycling the only
acceptable modes of transport. Proposals such as College Green Plaza (to create
a liveable city) and the Tara Street tower (to create high density employment
alongside public transport) are the most recent examples of developments
favoured in principle by this planning philosophy, but opposed in practice by
established uses, users and interest groups.
Planning students starting work in local
authorities are often shocked by the focus on planning applications (the
assessment of development proposals) relative to the small time spent on
forward planning (creating Local Area Plans, Development Plans, Strategic
Development Zones, etc.). When I was a planning student, no time was spent
teaching anyone how to assess a planning application; most time was spent on
plan-making and teaching students about the many component parts that make up
planning (design, transport, environment, landscape, heritage, drainage, etc.).
Realising how life is to become a factory line
of planning application after planning application is a hard lesson for many
planners. It’s like an architect finding out he / she will almost only ever get
to review the work of others, not produce their own designs.
By the time many planners get to work in
forward planning (f they get there at all) – to do the type of planning that attracted them to the
discipline in the first place, they are often worn out and somewhat de-skilled
by having spent so much time assessing planning applications and too little
time thinking about policy and forward planning.
It wasn’t meant to be this way. Planners, like
many others, would like this to be different. The learned aspirations of
planners get worn down by those who do not share those aspirations. Planners
are only too aware of all of the planning problems facing Ireland. For example,
Dublin, like all Irish cities, continues to grow on its periphery; a periphery
that expands every time a new road is built allowing commuters to travel to
Dublin from further away. We seem unable to address the planning and
transportation mistakes of the past. Planners know this, but how can they try
to fix it when the solutions they are taught in college are so hard to
implement in practice and when their day to day work is primarily focused on
making sure new development fits into the pattern of existing development?
Even when planners try to help, they can get
it wrong or find that the type of planning approach they are required to
implement does not help. For example, almost everywhere one looks there are
problems arising from over-dependence for decades on zoning areas for
development without remembering how neighbourhoods, villages, towns and cities
were created organically, in most cases, from mixed use development. We now
have myriad enclaves of various types of retail, commercial, industrial
development, etc. whose work forces live long distances away, but who are
poorly served by over-investment in road infrastructure and under-investment in
public transport and cycle infrastructure. Existing ‘and’ new communities are
heavily car dependant. Each year we build more housing estates in locations
poorly served by public transport. Each year those living in commuter belts
become more cynical about planning; yet, when opportunities arise for higher
density development at the right locations (beside public transport, etc.), it
is regularly opposed. Irish people want to live closer to jobs, yet still want
a three bedroom semi-detached house. God forbid anyone could consider an
apartment for life.
Why, in cumulative terms, do we manage to
train our planners along the same principles espoused by planners in the
Netherlands, Denmark and other countries whose cities we admire, but then fail
year after year to support those planners when they try to implement policies
and make planning decisions that would align us with those countries and
cities? Why do local authorities – councillors, management and planners fail to
implement sustainable planning policies? Even when development on greenfield
sites is being planned? How is it that a new neighbourhood in Amsterdam will be
planned including putting in all infrastructure and public transport provision
‘before’ any commercial development (including housing) is constructed? But in
Ireland we will repeatedly grant planning permission for housing schemes poorly
served by public transport, cycle lanes and pedestrian facilities? Housing
crisis after crisis seems able to derail real attempts to stem the tide of
car-dependent neighbourhoods. The principle seems to be ‘some houses without
adequate infrastructure provision are better than not enough houses’.
The irony here is how planning and planners
get blamed for every problem arising in how our built environment works. The
following points set out, in simple terms, why Irish planning struggles to move
forward.
Critically, when reflecting on planning
issues, it is easy to forget how planners are not the only ones involved: local
authority management, councillors, developers, government departments,
semi-state bodies, public and private engineers (transport, water, drainage,
etc.), architects, urban designers, landscape professionals, arborists,
interest groups, private observers, etc. all play a role in Irish planning and
why it is the way it is today.
Everyone involved in the planning process must
take some responsibility for the role they play. For example, it is developers who
pay a team of professionals to put proposals together. It is therefore not
surprising that the positives are emphasised and the negatives can almost
always be overcome (if only planning permission is granted). This is obvious,
but they are also less obvious ways in which the planning processes goals can
be thwarted.
The main areas of what economists might call
planning failure are as follows:
The problem with lobbying:
The Mahon Tribunal (https://planningtribunal.ie/) showed
how planning can fail when one group has more power and influence than other
interests. This is no longer, in my experience, the proverbial ‘brown bag’ full
of cash. Instead, it is simply a fact that a large organisation, company, large
property owner, well resourced stakeholder, etc. will be obtain access to
planners and councillors in a way that an individual may not be able to.
For example, as with why Wesley College is
better able to access national sports grants, so it is with the planning
system. There are many hoops to jump through to take part in the drafting of a
a Development Plan, Strategic Development Zone, a Local Area Plan, etc. There
are also many stages in drawing together a planning application in consultation
with local authority planners, engineers, etc. and other bodies such as Irish
Water, etc. Unless you know what you are doing, it is easy to feel excluded or
sidelined from the planning system. Many come away feeling it is biased towards
development interests.
The truth is, those with the resources have
the time and the expertise to do everything right. They make the submission on
the right date. They contact the right person in the right way at the right
time. They do all this with the help of professionals who do this work all the
time – often they hire private planning consultants who talk the same language
as the planners in a local authority.
Compared to this, residents and community
organisations are at a disadvantage. They often work on a volunteer basis with little
time and resources. This resource imbalance damages public trust in the
planning process, leading to the belief that something is wrong with what
planners do, not that this is the way society is structured. Wesley College won
the grant because they had the time and expertise that other communities do not
have. They didn’t do anything wrong.
During planning processes as currently
structured, it is obvious – though most find it controversial – that the main player(s)
in any planning proposal will get early and more access to those planners who
will decide to allow or not to allow it to proceed. When an individual, group
or community find out a proposal is being made that they are opposed to, they
are often shocked and appalled to find out that their local authority has known
about it for some time. This shouldn’t come as any surprise. A planning
application may be the result of years of consultation work between local
authority and applicant/developer.
The work on a single project may have started
years before with initial discussions with a local authority on its plans for a
given area owned by the applicant. The land owner will then seek to have their
lands zoned / designated in a Local Area Plan or County Development Plan in a
manner that is in line with those plans. Once zoned and defined by site
specific planning policy objectives, an applicant’s team of architect,
engineers, etc. will then begin pre-planning discussions with all sections of
the local authority and any other relevant bodies.
By the time a planning application is made,
there can have been considerable work undertaken to reach a point where the
proposal is acceptable to the local authority’s planners. But this comes as
news to those who are suddenly presented with a planning proposal to which they
are opposed. They can feel as though the entire system is against them; that
the planners are dancing to the developer’s tune. But, in fact, planning is
meant to guide development, not prevent it. Planners are just doing their job.
It doesn’t mean the planning application will be granted. All of this pre-planning
consultation is carried out on a ‘without prejudice’ basis. In other words,
planners will try to ensure a proposal is planning compliant as it progresses
through the process, but if areas of non-compliance merge, the planning
application may be refused.
Without understanding these planning
processes, it can be natural to believe landowners and/or developers are leading
the development of our urban areas. This view may not be correct but there are
a number of reasons why the Irish public and media often hold this view.
The decisions of councillors to zone and/or
change the zoning of lands can sometimes be hard to understand – even for the
planners who present the options to the councillors. It doesn’t have to mean
there is corruption, just that there are politics at play in the system that
mean that such decisions are not made wholly on their planning merits. In the
current housing crisis, the councillors from an area may decide to re-zone land
from other uses to housing in the hope that more houses will be delivered in an
area. This may not be the right planning decision, though it might contribute
to addressing housing demand. Short term thinking is however generally not
compatible with good planning.
The critical need is for both councillors and
planners to understand the imbalances inherent in the system and to try to
address the arising implications in their day to day work. For example, An Bord
Pleanalá Inspectors need to accept and understand that an individual or
community cannot employ the type of experts that an applicant can. When
assessing large schemes such as Dart Underground, Luas and Metro North, there
has been a tendency for applicant teams to overwhelm individuals and
communities with technical detail backed by expensive experts whose
presentations are guided by senior barristers. Planning Inspectors have a duty
to ensure individuals and communities are not disregarded just because they
couldn’t afford a noise, vibration, traffic, construction, etc. specialist or
because they did not have the time/resources to attend the full hearing.
There
is no level playing field and planners should not pretend there is one.
Individuals and communities should not have their views disregarded as they are
not the views of an expert. It is the planner’s job to independently assess
expert opinion from all perspectives – not just to believe an applicant funded
expert because he/or she has a doctorate and years of experience in their
field. Court cases often have similarly qualified experts on both sides of the
argument. Planning must similarly recognise that experts can be hired to make
or break a case. Again, pretending that there is a single expert opinion that
should be accepted is nonsense. Planners must fully interrogate technical
opinions.
In my view, planning departments should take
action to rebalance the imbalances. This doesn’t mean making the same mistakes
over and over again. For example:
§
Planning authorities produce Development Plans and Local Area
Plans that will have significant and material consequences for counties,
cities, towns, villages, etc. The consultation undertaken with the public is
inadequate. Those drafting the plans often set out their proposals in places
like libraries and wonder why no one turns up to comment. A few public meetings
may be held, but people don’t know why they should attend. Could leaflets not
be dropped to every household in the county when a new Development Plan is
being drafted? Would this not be better, cheaper and more likely to be read
than newspaper adverts? There is a need to better publicise the consultation
processes involved in the production of plans. Summaries of plans should
clearly set out their most significant proposals, i.e. it should be clear why
this County Development Plan differs from the previous County Development Plan,
though they may look identical at first glance. For example, if an area is to
be zoned for high density housing but is currently zoned low density, this
should be made clear. The process through which applicants/developers – like
anyone else - make submissions, and all deadlines, should be clearly set out
and all such submissions made available online in an easily accessible manner
(to anyone: not just to those who know
where to look).
§
Planning authorities shouldn’t pretend that the
developer/applicant can carry out pre-planning consultation for them. For
example, don’t rely on developers/applicants to undertake consultation with
individuals and communities before lodging a planning application to a local
authority or the Board. This is not, in my experience, that helpful, as, not
only is it hit and miss (and often just paying lip service to “pre-planning”),
the developer/applicant usually presents a scheme at public presentations which
is so well developed that consultation is pointless. Any feedback given is
called pre-planning feedback and is addressed by way of setting out reasons why
the changes cannot be made. Only feedback from a local authority or the Board
can usually force changes during and after pre-planning feedback is given.
What should be done to keep local communities
abreast of what they often view to be sinister agreements being made between
planners and developers?
1. The public should continue to be provided
with adequate opportunities to, for example, take part in the planning
application process at a local level, not have these opportunities further
diminished by more and more planning applications proceeding directly to An
Bord Pleanála, thereby avoiding full assessment by a local authority planning
department and removing the principle of a planning appeal in such cases.
2. Pre-planning could and should involve the public.
The assessment of many planning applications no longer starts on the day they
are formally submitted. Consideration should be given to requiring developers /
applicants who wish to undertake pre-planning consultation with a local authority,
to advertise this fact by way of site notice(s) and a newspaper notice. Local
authorities should make available, on a public pre-planning file, the plans and
details being discussed and their response(s) to these. Third parties should be allowed to comment at
pre-planning stage by all means and these should also be recorded on the
pre-planning file. Such comments would inform pre-planning feedback to the
developer/applicant. Pre-planning it important, but as things stand, it is
absent of community involvement. Planners see themselves as representing the
entire community, when this cannot, of course be the case.
3. At present, it is not clear who decides if
a pre-planning meeting or communication is to be “confidential”. The public
should be clear under what circumstances discussions with a developer/applicant
will be kept confidential.
4. Pre-planning discussions and records of
those discussions should be made available on the public pre-planning file.
Without this, planning application processes will always be criticised as
lacking transparency. It is not enough to type up a few notes as a formal
record of a pre-planning meeting and keep (nobody else knows about these until
a planning application is lodged) record of such meetings.
5. All emails, phone calls and other
communication between the applicant and the planning department and between any
other party and the planning department in respect of a project should be
recorded on planning files. This would include any representations made on the
applicant’s behalf by elected reps or anyone else.
There are many other ways improvements could
be made.
The need to move with the times:
Planning has been done in a certain way for
decades. Staff in planning departments are used to assessing planning
applications according to a given set of policies and standards. These policies
and standards can be hard to change.
For example, those in cycle lobby groups get
frustrated because so much road space in cities continues to be given to the
car when all evidence indicates that more sustainable transport modes including
cycling should be prioritised instead. This frustration is understandable, planning
applications for inner-city schemes still arrive accompanied by traffic
assessments whose purpose is to ensure the proposal does not interfere with the
efficient flow of vehicles but which fail to reflect the need to reduce
vehicles and vehicular trips in the city in favour of healthier (less
pollution), more liveable and economically sustainable alternatives such as
train, tram, bus, bike and walking.
There is a need to make sure all of our plans
– national, regional, county and local – are evidence-based and contain the
latest standards when it comes to architecture, building standards, urban
design, transport, drainage, etc. It can however he hard for old dogs to learn
new tricks.
Another example is our apartment guidelines.
We want people to live in urban areas, especially in inner-cities and beside
public transport nodes. We want to create neighbourhoods and communities of
individuals and families who can permanently live in these areas. If we want to
achieve this we need to ensure apartments are of a standard and size that
encourages people to live in them as a permanent home. If we lower quality
standards and make minimum apartment sizes too small, then few would choose to
live in them permanently; instead they will aspire to living somewhere else
what can provide bigger and better homes in established non-transient
communities. Our thinking on this issue should be long term and not short term;
however, Irish planners have grown up in and worked in an Ireland where
apartments are seen as and planned as short term and inadequate. In this way
policy is out of step with the evidence-based policy need.
Not everyone understands planning
Planning has managed, since, 1964 when the
first Planning Act became law, to cease control of almost all development and
the use of all land and property in Ireland. With plans and maps, you must now
ask planners for permission to do things with your land and property. This
power, now in the hands of planners, comes with a good deal of responsibility.
The problem is that while planners are trained to understand the planning
system and then gain experience within that system through work, those they
come into contact with – the public, councillors, etc. – are almost always less
informed.
This means planners can may produce plans that
not everyone understands based on various planning factors that not everyone
understands. Planners constantly find themselves explaining the planning system,
rather than the plan or the planning application.
Planners must understand all applicable
planning legislation, regulations, case law, statutory guidelines, guidelines
and the existing tier of national development plan, national framework plan,
regional plans and local plans. Planners must also understand how the planning
system works in local authorities and at An Bord Pleanála level. There is much
to the planning system.
If the public and the councillors they
represent don’t fully understand planning, it means areas of planning that
involve them will not function as they should in a democracy.
Misunderstandings inevitably emerge over what
planners are trying to achieve. For example:
- Planners are criticised for plan policies
which everyone agrees with in principle but often do not want in their
immediate area, e.g. those applying to windfarms.
- Planners want less road space given to cars
and more to buses, trams, bikes and pedestrians. This is because the more road
space cars are given, the more congestion which arises as people choose to
drive. People in cars resent bus lanes and cycle lanes as they wrongly perceive
that an extra traffic lame would reduce congestion.
- People living in low density housing near a
train station are pleased with this arrangement: great quality of life and
access to public transport. The problem is that this is at the expense of all
those having to travel further to get to the train station and those forced to choose
the car over the train. Planners want high density development at train
stations to make best use of public transport.
Public opinion is often different to the
evidence-based policies planners are pursuing. It can be influenced by single
issue lobby groups, media coverage, mis-information and by long established
views. But it is public opinion that councillors must listen to in order to be
re-elected. They may take positions on planning issues that are not
evidence-based.
How do planners address this? I think planners
can often feel like those who opposed smoking during its peak. The attitude can
be ‘we know what’s right for you even if you don’t know yourself’. Planners
taking the ‘we’ll consult them about what they think should be done and then
when they don’t give us the answer we want, we’ll do the right thing for them’.
In some ways this is understandable. Planners possess knowledge and experience
non-planners don’t have, they have developed positions on most planning issues
and they work within a framework of plans and guidelines that contain policies
that must be included in any plans they produce. In some areas consultation is
pointless as entire areas, such as apartment standards, are subject to
mandatory guidelines.
Here is an example of a plan policy that most
agree is needed but which communities struggle with. Say a development plan is
produced which requires, in line with national guidelines and plans, higher
density housing near public transport. Most people agree with this in
principle. However, in recent years, in some areas, planning applications for
high density development near public transport have been heavily opposed by
existing communities shocked at these proposals.
Take Foxrock in the leafy suburbs of Dun
Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. For decades it has been a low density leafy
suburb containing some of the most expensive property in Ireland. When the M50
and a Luas stop were proposed which would serve the community, residents were
pleased. They benefitted from both. However, this accessibility has changed how
planners now view Foxrock. Now served by high quality public transport,
planners are seeking, where appropriate, an increase in density on large
residential sites. Existing residents do not want this and feel the Development
Plan should not allow this densification. Who is right? Planners are trained to
seek high density development near public transport to reduce car usage and to
create more sustainable communities, but this often means changing existing
communities with their own established views on how that community should
develop in the future.
What can planners do to help people understand
what they are trying to do? And, if they do try to do this, would it make any
difference? Are people just change-averse? I think all planners can do is try.
They must try to explain during the drafting of development plans and local
area plans exactly what the vision of those plans are and what the policies
contained in each will mean once planning applications start being lodged. The
pros and cons should be clear. The concerns people have should not be dismissed
but examined and answers given. Councillors must then vote to agree or disagree
with plan policies. Once those plan policies are in place, planners should not
be criticised for merely being the ones tasked with deciding if proposals
comply or do not comply with those policies.
The problem is that time and again,
communities do not understand and the councillors who represent them did not
understand the ramifications of planning policies they have agreed to. Take
another example. If planning rules around building houses in rear gardens of
existing houses change during the drafting of a development plan, but few
people in the community realised this, they can be shocked when their neighbour
lodges a planning application for a new house beside their back garden. But the
problem is not the planning application; it is that they did not take part in
the planning process around a new development plan because they didn’t
understand they needed to and planners did not try to consult with every
household in the county.
There are real difficulties around how best to
involve the community in what is a very detailed two year drafting process for
a development plan; but I think the work would be worth doing. Planners need to
go out in into the community to consult on their plans, not wait for the
community to come to them. Those carrying out surveys don’t just issue them and
then wait for people to fill them in; they have to work hard to get people to
respond. This work should take place before a plan is drafted. Planners should
not just provide a non-specific ‘Issues Paper’; they should instead provide a
list of options for each of the significant policies to be contained in a plan.
The plan making process should almost be a county-wide referendum on planning
policies. The first draft of a plan should reflect what the community wants
within the evidence-based options offered (many of which will be derived from
national and regional plans and planning guidance issued from government
departments). The content of the first draft should not be substantially
drafted based on what the planning department thinks it should contain.
Planners tend to consider public consultation
to really get going once they have a draft plan for people to comment on. But
this is really too late. A draft plan provides an opportunity for planners to
explain their policy positions and outline supporting evidence, but by now the
approach tends to be defend what has already been produced rather than to
consider substantial revisions. For example, if Dublin City Council indicates
locations for tall buildings in a Draft Plan and then the community disagrees
with them, the city planners will have no difficulty batting away individual
disagreements as they have already provided evidence-based justifications for
their decisions. The possible locations of tall buildings should have been the
subject of early stage detailed work with communities in those areas where tall
buildings were being considered. These consultations should have informed the
choices made by the planners, but this is not usually how it works.
It should come as no surprise then that when
tall buildings such as that proposed at Tara Street are refused notwithstanding
the proposed height was in line with Dublin City Council’s plans including the
local area plan for that location. The decision to consider a tall building at
that location should have been the subject of better and more informed public
consultation. Instead, both the community and the applicant / developer find
themselves frustrated that the plans for the area are not achieving what they
want.
Planners, planning departments and the Irish
Planning Institute could try to be more proactive in addressing misunderstandings
associated with the planning and development process in Ireland. We live in an
era where there is a YouTube video for everything; planners could create videos
to explain planning processes including plan-making and planning application
assessment. There is a need to move with the times and effectively communicate
planning ideas and rationales to the community. Instead of producing an ‘Issues
Paper’ at the start of the drafting process for all plans, planning departments
could circulate a video on social media and provide links to online
explanations of the options available to those drafting the plan. The options
could be presented in a variation of a questionnaire format (e.g. do you think
Dublin City Council should do x, y or z when it comes to a given planning issue?).
It should be made easy to make electronic submissions. However plan ideas are
presented, it should be visually appealing and accessible, not difficult to
access, boring to review and difficult to make a response.
Planners may argue that they offer public
consultation events and public meetings. These tend to be very managed events;
manage, that is, to avoid conflict when sensitive planning issues are
discussed. It may be more effective to offer workshops on given planning issues.
This would allow planners to set out why the plan is being produced and explain
how the plan has been designed with the user in mind. This is not always the
case.
For example, Wicklow County Council sets out
the chapters of its County Development Plan in a way that can be very hard to
follow, even for a seasoned planner. It would help if all Development Plans
followed the same structure such that relevant planning policies, development
standards and zonings can be identified quickly and easily. Those wishing to
know if a development is permitted on a site should quickly (and without
confusion) be able to locate the zoning of the site, any characteristics of the
site that may constrain development (protected structure status, in an
Architectural Conservation Area, subject to listed views, beside a national
monument, beside a environmentally important site, etc.), applicable
development standards (roads, parking, drainage, design, etc.). It would be
very helpful to those with little understanding of planning, if an online
Development Plan like Wicklow’s was, quite literally, a list of hyperlinks
(e.g. someone should be able to carry out a map based site search and once at
the site on a map be able to follow hyperlinks to all applicable Development
Plan and other planning and environmental policies pertaining to that site).
Instead, Wicklow’s, like most Development Plans, is produced as a large hard
copy document with accompanying maps which are uploaded to the web to be
accessed in those formats.
All
those producing plans should be required to translate the multiple and often
hard to understand (or rationalise) land use zonings applicable to an area into
easily understood language linked to explanations of those zonings. In some
areas, even telling the difference between categories of zonings can be hard .The
Dublin City Development Plan contains multiple ‘Z’ zonings in variations of
purple that can be hard to identify one from another. It would be helpful if
the entire country used the same zoning categories. Generalised zoning types have
been developed for all local authorities in the country as part what is called
‘the Myplan project’ but it complements, rather than replaces, the existing
statutory zoning used for each individual plan (this data is also available on
the MyPlan map viewer at http://www.myplan.ie/viewer/).
It would be helpful if the online zoning maps could be clicked and, at minimum,
the correct zoning be identified with a further link to a description of what
the zoning means and what development is allowed or not allowed in it. This
would allow someone considering developing a site to immediately understand
what the planning authority will consider as an acceptable form of development
in principle on the site.
Times have changed, people are now interested
in what is happening around them. Everyone wants to understand what the plans
for their area are. Finding out about these plans and taking part in their
formulation should be made easy.
While planners are gradually helping the public
to understand their work, there are instances when planners themselves fail to
follow best practices. Another big issue facing Irish planning is the need to
be consistent in decision making.
Once people know you are a planner, you are
constantly asked to explain planning decisions which seem at odds with other
planning decisions. Planning decisions are regularly made which seem to
contradict planning policy. People will tell you how planning advice received
from different planners in even the same planning authority can differ. Those
who take the time to undertake pre-planning with a planning authority for a
given development, regularly experience apparent changes of mind once a
planning application is lodged (pre-planning consultations are held ‘without prejudice’ but this should not
mean it is ok to lead people and businesses down the garden path).
If planning is unpredictable, and it would be
hard to convince many of those I work for that many An Bord Pleanála decisions
can be exactly that (a roll of a dice, a bit random and other expressions are
regularly used), people and businesses lose confidence in it.
Planners should be able to give predictable
advice. There are now national, regional, county and often local plans and
national planning guidelines containing all relevant planning policies and
standards in place to help planners in their assessments. Planners should do
their best to ensure the advice provided to applicants/developers at all stages
of the planning process is independent, accurate, unambiguous and professional.
By professional, I mean opportunities to
advise applicants/developers should be taken seriously.
Pre-planning submissions, for example, should
have been reviewed in advance and ‘all’ planning issues requiring attention
then raised at the meeting.
If the proposals are unacceptable and it is
unlikely revisions will make much difference, this should be made clear. Too
often applicants/developers lodge planning applications following detailed
pre-planning only to find the planning department (usually more senior planners
than those attending the pre-planning meetings) are opposed in principle. When
a straight refusal arises from the lack of communication within planning
departments, this can cause those employed to make a planning application -
architects, private planners, engineers, etc. – to unfairly be effectively
fired from a project, as the client will blame them not the planners. This
should not happen. Planners should be facilitators, not inhibitors arising from
bad pre-planning advice.
Detail is very important at pre-planning. The
applicant/developer team will know the proposals thoroughly and expect the
local authority planner attending to have reviewed those proposals such that
informed pre-planning can take place. Problem is, many planners consider
themselves to be so busy that it is ok for them to turn up at a pre-planning
meeting barely having looked at the pre-planning submission, it at all. The
view would seem to be that we can address this when a planning application is
lodged. But this is not how it is meant to be. Pre-planning should facilitate a
scheme’s development to the point where it can be granted subject to conditions
without delays arising for further information requests. The attitude should
not be, well, if we missed something it doesn’t matter, we’ll just ask for
further information when the application proposals are submitted. This causes
the loss of time and increases costs for applicants/developers. It also makes
planners seem as though they are flip-flopping; making it up as they are going
along.
I understand how busy planners can be. The
work load can feel immense and staying on top of the detail in multiple
planning applications at once, and meeting statutory deadlines, can seem
daunting. Pre-planning submissions can be the last thing a local authority
planner wants to be dealing with when up to the neck in already lodged planning
applications. But that is what planners are paid to do and, if they do the
pre-planning correctly, and the planning framework is correct, then the work
needed to assess planning applications should be less, as they should be
submitted in an almost fully planning compliant manner.
Public sector planners can also forget that
they should act in the public interest. They can find themselves toeing a
corporate line which may diverge from what they would otherwise do. Some Irish
local authorities are known to almost ask their planners to write a ‘for’ and
an ‘against’ planning assessment when assessing a planning application and then
one is chosen for them by senior management in consultation with councillors.
In other councils, the lure of development contributions can be too much to
allow a development which is contrary to proper planning to be refused. It is
easy to say that planners should write one report which sets out their
professional opinion and refuse to change this, but planners are employed in a
hierarchy. Promotion follows those who follow the company line and stay in
public sector planning for years. Local authority planners, like most
employees, are often required to do what their employer wants.
Examples of how this can happen are easy to
find:
1. A large employer or company moving into an area for a given
development may need to bend established planning rules and this may be allowed
because the county is desperate for them to choose their area over another.
2. Pressure from a large supermarket chain for surface parking around
a new large store on a site within the centre of a town is at odds with
planning policy which favours mixed use development (with little or no parking)
of the same site. The council wants the supermarket and feels it must accept
its development model.
Planners have long acknowledged and sought to confront
poor planning practice in the profession. Planners know all the problems, but
are, on the larger issues, at the whim of politics to make the changes. For
example, there is a need for the Office of the Planning Regulator to be set up
(as per the recommendation of the Mahon Tribunal back in 2012) and there are
promises it’ll be in place this year. It has been campaigned for by the Irish
Planning Institute, the accreditation body for Irish planners.
I hope this office will eventually ensure that
planners never have to make a planning recommendation or decision, which is not
in line with proper planning practice. The Planning Regulator should be able to
ensure that all local authority and An Bord Pleanála decisions are subject to
independent scrutiny. That is, are made in line with all relevant plans,
policies and guidelines in place at that time. Decisions that seem at odds with proper
planning practice will be independently reviewed.
Two areas that need such review are those
circumstances where decisions are made that are at odds with planning policy
set out in statutory plans. This can happen when: (a) Local authority
councillors agree to material contravention (vote to allow change(s) to the statutory
plan for an area to permit a proposal to proceed); or (b) In circumstances
where the planning authority decides to refuse permission on the grounds that
the proposed development materially contravenes the Development Plan, the Board
may grant permission on appeal but only in certain instances
§
the proposed development is of strategic or national importance,
or
§
there are conflicting objectives in the Development Plan or the
objectives are not clearly stated, insofar as the proposed development is
concerned, or
§
permission should be granted having regard to regional planning
guidelines for the area, Ministerial guidelines, Ministerial policy directives,
the statutory obligations of any local authority in the area, and any relevant
policy of the Government or any Minister of the Government, or
§
permission should be granted having regard to the pattern of
development and permissions granted in the area since the making of the
Development Plan.
Granting planning permission in circumstances
where a statutory plan is to be changed to facilitate it is always
controversial because such plans are produced (at least in principle) in line
with the responses received from public consultation. By ignoring the plan or
part(s) of a plan, a decision could reasonably be considered to be at odds with
what the community wants.
Decisions made in this way by An Bord Pleanála
can be especially upsetting as unlike councillors voting for material
contravention, Board Members never have to face an electorate after making an
unpopular decision. It is a commonly held view that the Board should provide a
detailed rationale when it decides not to agree with its own Planning Inspector
that a planning application should be refused. Similarly, the Board should
provide its rationale – in detail – when it is considering granting in the face
of a local authority refusal because a scheme is non-compliant with a statutory
plan. This rationale should be provided whether the decision is or is not in
line with its own Planning Inspector’s recommendation. The Board has the power
and it should explain why it is wielding it.
Of course none of this would be necessary if
every plan contained provisions for every development proposed and everyone
agreed with content of plans and the content of planning applications. The
problem is that they don’t. There is a need for those planners drafting
statutory plans to work hand in hand with those assessing planning
applications. You’d think this would be obvious; it’s not. Those assessing
planning applications in local authorities (those not on the ‘Forward Planning’
team) tend not to be involved at all unless they need to take into account the
content of a recently published draft plan in writing their assessment of a
planning application. Issues which have arisen in the assessment of planning
applications – zoning issues, site planning problems, infrastructure issues,
etc. - can be lost entirely when the next plan is being drafted. Where issues
have arisen that have prevented a site from being developed or a scheme has
been refused. There should be some way for these issues to be noted on an
internal land use maps such that these issues can be reviewed by the forward
planning team once it starts work on the next plan for an area. For example, a
tall building has just been refused at Tara Street Station in Dublin. This
needs to be reflected in the next plan for the area. In this case it will be,
it is a controversial site, but the same principle should apply to all sites
that are zoned for development but development has not progressed. In this way,
those applying the content of statutory plans should gradually help to modify
zonings and site specific planning policies such that the right development is
proposed for a given site.
Another idea, and one not many local authority
and An Bord Pleanála planners would like, is that planning departments could
consider peer quality control mechanisms. In private planning, architecture,
engineering and other relevant firms, peer quality control is almost standard
practice. That is, I write a report for a client, a colleague of the same level
then reviews the report and comments on it, changes are made, and then it is
forwarded to a senior member of staff for signing off. More senior planners are
very busy. They cannot reasonably be expected to find every minor issue with every
planning report they are asked to sign. Every local authority and Board planner
would benefit from having a colleague carefully review their work to try to
identify any issues ‘before’ it goes to a senior planner for signing off. This
way the role of the senior is not to correct the quality of the work but to
decide whether he/she agrees with the assessment and recommendation. This extra
stage would allow senior planners to concentrate on ensuring better decisions
are made and not on ensuring every box has been ticked, every comma in the
right place and that it reads ok. As things stand, there are brilliant planners
assessing planning applications whose work is flawless and need hardly be
reviewed before signing off, but there are those who use their senior planner
to effectively correct their work as though they were back in school. Poor
review works in the private sector and it would work in the public sector.
Bringing pressure to bear
There is a concern amongst the public that pressure,
and political pressure, can brought to bear on planner’s recommendations during
the report-writing stage. The most recent example of public disquiet about his
is the reaction to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s comments on helping Donald Trump to
achieve the refusal of a wind farm planning application.
Local authorities and An Bord Pleanála must
ensure there is no interference from any person or party during the planning
report writing stage. The only means for a third party to take part in the
assessment of a planning application should be by way of the official
observation / objection / submission route. Phone calls, emails, faxes,
conversations in corridors, unofficial meetings, etc. should not take place. If
they do, they should be recorded. Obviously there are many actors involved in
assessing a planning application within and outside a local authority or An
Bord Pleanála, but each of these does so in a formal capacity (internal
departments like roads and drainage and external bodies like Irish Water, An
Taisce, etc.). There is a responsibility on each of these internal departments
and external bodies to ensure their assessments and recommendations are not
influenced by external pressure from politicians or by anyone else.
Given how phone calls, emails and other
informal contacts with planners and those providing reports to planners as part
of the assessment of planning applications can undermine public confidence in
the planning process, senior planners and managers need to do everything they
can to protect the independence of staff. Not every decision a planner working
for a local authority makes can be popular. Many are far from popular. In many
cases entire communities can oppose a single planning application. Pressure to
try to get the popular decision can be immense. This pressure must however only
come through formal channels.
Conclusion:
I hope this article provides some explanation
of why our planning processes often fail. Understanding these points is a
necessary step toward trying to improve the system. The Irish Planning System
has long been calling for a root and branch review of the entire planning
system and there has been a recent review of An Bord Pleanála. Change is
coming. Hopefully it will address some if not all of the above issues. The aim
must be to try to achieve better planning outcomes for Ireland. To ensure that
as many people as possible agree with the path planned for the sustainable
future of the country. Planners must be part of the solution, but they can only
be part. They need a solid and community-accepted planning framework of
statutory plans and policies in which to work. All actors in the planning
process need to be involved in improving the current planning system. Fundamentally,
planners need to work harder to try to win community trust in their decisions.
This can only be achieved by improving communication between those living in
the area and those planning the future of that area. Planning applications
should not come as surprises. They should be expected. Communities should know
what to expect over a five, ten, twenty year horizons. But we are not here yet.
Communities continue to be shocked at proposals being made in their areas.
Planners must work to avoid this; not argue that people just don’t know what’s
best for them. Planners should facilitate, not dictate.
(c) Brendan Buck
