Irish Planning Institute Conference: All city and county development plans, regional planning guidelines and waste management plans are to be subjected to more rigorous environmental scrutiny under an EU directive taking effect on July 20th.
The Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive, adopted in 2001, is intended to contribute to more sustainable development throughout the EU by "screening out" less acceptable alternatives at an early stage.
Mr John Martin, principal planning adviser in the Department of the Environment, said yesterday that SEA meant choices would have to be made much more explicit regarding the future pattern of development in any area.
Addressing the Irish Planning Institute's annual conference in Mullingar, Mr Martin said a local authority that favoured dispersed rural housing would be required by SEA to estimate the impact of septic tanks on ground water.
He stressed that it was "vital to fully integrate SEA" into the overall management of a county development plan, particularly as the EU directive requires monitoring the significant environmental effects of implementing the plan.
"The purpose of SEA is to facilitate selection of the most sustainable option, so that development projects based on the plan will also be sustainable. Thus, real alternative strategies should be compared," Mr Martin said.
Though implementation of SEA would impose a "resource burden" on local authorities, he said most of the data could be obtained from sources such as the Environmental Protection Agency.
Provision for SEA was made in the 2000 Planning Act, so it was "not coming as a total novelty". Planners were also used to assessing environmental impact statements for major projects, but this time "they will have to write their own".
"It's essentially an EIA [environmental impact assess- ment] writ large," he said. One of the requirements is that the SEA report will be available to the public when a new draft development plan goes on display.
The first plan to be subjected to SEA in Dublin was the revised Docklands Area Master Plan. According to the planners involved, Mr Jerry Barnes and Ms Terry Prendergast, it turned out to be a "very worthwhile" exercise.
The Cork County Plan (2003) was also subjected to it. Mr Kevin Lynch, senior executive planner with Cork County Council, said it had caused "fundamental questions to be asked" and the final outcome was "very different" to what was originally envisaged.