Murphy urges councils to clamp down on application discussions

Irish planning minister Eoghan Murphy has urged councils to clamp down on discussion of individual planning applications before they are determined by officials and to ensure that officials don’t participate in exchanges about the merits of proposals. In a letter to council chief executives and senior planners signed by Terry Sheridan, chief planner in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government, and sent to The Planner, concern is voiced over the risk to “due process”.

Read the full article @ www.theplanner.co.uk

Builders who have a 10-year plan

GIVEN that most builders have laid down their shovels for the foreseeable future, you might imagine that the most challenging assignment local authority planners get these days is to reorganise the filing system, or get to grips with the finer points of sodoku.

Not so. While very few builders have any serious intention of getting back on site any time soon, there are still planning applications going through the system.

How many of them will ever be built is another question.

Some of the developments will undoubtedly see the light of day but it appears some builders are going through motions by submitting planning applications to realise the value of their sites while others are going for 10-year planning permissions in the hope the economy picks up before then.

This week alone there’s a 10-year planning application to Dublin City Council for an ambitious regeneration project in the Charlemont Street area in Dublin 2.

The planning application is for 260 residential units to rehouse the existing community and a new public street from Charlemont Street to Richmond Street South.

There are also plans for an office element with shops, restaurants and a multiplex cinema and a community sports centre .

On Monastery Road in Clondalkin at the Siac HQ, there’s a proposal for 380 residential units and shops which is currently on appeal with An Bord Pleanála.

The sisters of St Louis are looking to build 86 apartments on their grounds in their high school in Rathmines, six of which will be reserved for their own use and in Swords, MKN is seeking permission for another phase of the Ridgewood residential development.

Irish Times

www.buckplanning.ie

Big fall in planning applications to 10 county councils

THERE HAS been a major slump in the number of planning permission applications made over the past three years, according to a random survey of 10 county councils conducted by this newspaper.

Just 329 planning applications were made to Leitrim County Council this year, up to mid-August. This compares with 2,142 applications for the full year of 2004, the highest figure in the decade for the sparsely-populated county.

2006 was also a busy year for applications but the downturn followed and was particularly notable last year when just 958 applications were lodged.

Planning applications can include anything from a house extension to a holiday home to a 100-house development.

Figures supplied by many of the 10 county councils show that 2006 was the peak year for planning applications, although 2007 was also a busy period for planning offices.

The Department of the Environment’s statistics also highlight the downward direction of planning applications across the State.

Figures are not available for this year yet, but preliminary figures for last year show that 62,906 planning applications were lodged. This compares with 91,654 applications in 2007 and 97,227 in 2006.

The most recent figures produced by the Department of the Environment show that 13,449 planning applications were made nationally in the last three months of last year. This is less than half the number made in 2006, when some 27,689 applications were lodged in the final three months of the year. Waterford County Council received just 490 applications for planning up to August 14th this year. In 2006, 2,069 applications were made but figures dropped to 1,935 in 2007 and 1,314 last year.

Cork county also saw a major slump in applications in recent years. Up to last Friday some 3,743 planning applications were made to Cork County Council.

In the boom year of 2006, 12,814 applications were lodged.

Much of the construction boom of recent years was centred on the Dublin region and the reduction in planning applications is evident here.

Fingal County Council, which has a catchment area taking in urban centres such as Balbriggan, Malahide and Mulhuddart, received 841 applications this year up to mid-August.

In 2006 it received 2,737 applications for the full year. It makes the point that the number of planning applications does not translate into the houses built for a number of reasons. An application may refer to one or 50 houses; permission is denied in some cases; and successful applicants have five years before the planning permission lapses.

Dublin City Council received 5,938 planning applications in 2005. In the first six months of this year, just 1,482 applications were received.

Applications to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council went from 3,143 in 2006 to just 972 for the first 7½ months of this year.

And South Dublin County Council just received 545 planning applications up to mid-August this year compared with 1,881 for the full year of 2006.

Co Donegal saw a significant rise in planning applications in 2006 after it introduced a new county development plan.

Some 9,352 applications were lodged in that year. The number of applications fell to 7,579 in the following year, and 4,880 last year. By the end of July this year, Donegal County Council had received just 1,769 applications. In contrast, it had received 5,787 at the same time in 2006.

Commuter counties such as Meath and Kildare have also noticed a significant reduction in planning applications.

By mid-August this year, Kildare county council had received 940 planning applications. In 2007, it received 3,012 for the entire year.

Neighbouring county Meath received 1,286 planning applications up to August 14th this year.

In 2007, some 3,869 applications were lodged while 3,356 applications were lodged last year.

Irish Times

www.buckplanning.ie

Cork planning applications fall by over 50%

THE number of planning applications received by Cork County Council in the first three months of this year is down more than half on the boom years of 2006 and 2007.

Figures released yesterday by Ireland’s largest local authority show that just 350 applications were received in January, 478 in February and 451 in March.

The county council received a record total of 12,814 applications in 2006 and the following year the figure fell marginally to 12,632.

The average number of applications per month in 2006 was 1,067 compared with just 426 this year.

If that continues to be the trend the county council will get just 5,142 planning applications for 2009, which is also dramatically down on last year’s figure of 8,687.

Downturns in planning applications may reflect the economic slump, but they also have significant financial implications for Cork County Council.

The local authority receives millions of euro each year from development contributions — charges levied on builders which the council uses to fund vital infrastructure projects such as water, sewerage and road schemes.

Joe O’Brien, chairman of the Cork branch of the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), said it came as no surprise to hear that planning applications were dramatically down.

"It’s an indication of how badly private house building is going at the moment," Mr O’Brien said.

The CIF has also noticed that larger projects, featuring 100, 200 or 300 homes, had become rarities compared with 2006 and 2007.

"That’s understandable because houses just aren’t selling at the moment. In 2006 we built 90,000 houses nationally, whereas demand is usually between 45,000 and 50,000 houses. There is no way that could have continued," Mr O’Brien said.

He said builders had hoped for a more orderly drop-off, but the world recession had made it a more dramatic decline.

"People working in the private sector won’t purchase because they are worried about their jobs," the CIF branch chairman said.

However, he believes that 2010 will be a better year.

"I don’t think house prices will drop any further. 2009 will be the year it will bottom out and things will start to improve," Mr O’Brien said.

Irish Examiner

www.buckplanning.ie