SOME COUNCILLORS have learned nothing from the economic disaster they helped to visit upon society through excessive building, to judge by the attitude of elected representatives in Ennis, Co Clare. Last month they rezoned an additional 95 acres for housing purposes near Ennis in contravention of the town development plan and against the advice of their officials and planners. Such a determined rejection of proper planning and sustainable development criteria should not be tolerated.
The councillors ignored a direction from the Department of the Environment that the land involved should be frozen for development until after 2014. Their own development plan required them to avoid expansion outside identified centres unless no suitable alternative sites were available. Protecting, enhancing and conserving the open countryside were identified as key objectives in the plan.
A study of the recent property collapse by academics at NUI Maynooth noted that the building frenzy could not have taken place without rezoning and planning permissions, no matter how much banks were prepared to lend. Planning failures facilitated a boom that led to an oversupply of 100,000 homes.
Clare county planners objected to the rezoning because it conflicted with an established plan to develop Ennis from the centre outwards. The proposed amendments involved development in an ad-hoc and unrestrictive manner and would, they said, result in a segregated and haphazard approach to sequential planning. They were also likely to cause significant and negative environmental effects. In other words, this was precisely the unthinking and unprincipled approach that had led the State to economic disaster in the first place.
There is some cause for optimism in the Ennis affair. Planners and officials have now publicly challenged the decision taken by councillors. Their observations and the proposed changes have gone on public display and citizens are being invited to make their views known on the matter within the next three weeks.
At a time when political parties are looking towards the local elections of 2014, voters should make their views known on such matters. People power is one thing politicians understand.
The electorate should demand an end to the traditional relationship between developers, site-sellers and councillors in favour of good planning and sustainable development.