Councillors to urge Oireachtas not to ‘diminish democracy’ in new planning Bill

The new planning Bill risks “diminishing Irish democracy” representatives of city and county councillors will tell an Oireachtas housing committee on Tuesday.

The Draft Planning and Development Bill 2022 is designed to reform the planning process, with mandatory timelines for decisions and a greater alignment between national and local plans.

However, in a submission to the committee, the Association of Irish Local Government (AILG) which represents 949 councillors across all city and councils said the Bill would further erode the limited powers of local representatives, particularly in the development plan process.

“We as councillors are the citizens’ representatives in the entire planning process,” AILG president Pat Fitzpatrick said in the submission.

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“While there are some good features in this Bill not least in its objective to consolidate of a patchwork of planning laws that has evolved over recent years, there are also some overarching issues which in the view of many of our members will work to unnecessarily restrict the councillors’ primacy in the development plan process,” Mr Fitzpatrick said.

[ Planning Bill to bring ‘greater clarity, consistency and certainty’ ]

AILG members were concerned the Bill “reinforces a centralised planning structure” with the county development plan “locked into rigid national and regional planning frameworks”. These overarching planning strategies were based on “assumptions and projections which may bear no [resemblance to the] reality to the conditions in particular localities as identified by councillors in their day-to-day role of representing the citizens,” he said.

“Local democracy is the bedrock of our civic culture; if the Oireachtas diminishes the role of the councillor, in a matter as relevant to local communities as planning, then the Oireachtas is diminishing Irish democracy as a whole.”

The reinforcement of the oversight of the Office of the Planning Regulator in the Bill also “further limits the discretion councillors have in shaping their locality based on their realistic local knowledge of its needs and capacities”, he said.

[ Planning applications for 70,000 homes awaiting decisions from An Bord Pleanála or High Court ]

[ An Bord Pleanála and planning regulator caution against fines for delayed decisions ]

The AILG is seeking an amendment to the Bill to restore councillors’ capacity to make decisions on local authority housing developments.

“Councillors are aware more than anybody of the need for housing in all parts of our country. There is no need to have a provision in law bypassing councillors’ discretion.”

Separately the organisation which represents local authority chief executives, the County and City Management Association (CCMA), will tell the committee more staff are needed to implement the changes than were previously identified.

An analysis of “existing resource deficiencies” in the planning system had found a need for 541 extra staff, CCMA chairman Kevin Kelly said. “The new Act will further increase the demand for extra staff above and beyond this initial assessment.”

A “strict adherence” to the timeframes for making planning decisions is critical to provide confidence and certainty, Mr Kelly said, but the CCMA was calling for longer timelines for decisions on larger, more complex developments, due to their workload.