Tangled web of priorities surrounds rural planning

THROUGHOUT West Kerry houses dot the landscape, ribbon development is widespread, mini housing estates stand out on hillsides, over a third of the houses are holiday homes with vacant windows staring out on the majestic scenery. It’s not easy to discern any plan or pattern; the houses might just as well have fallen randomly out of the sky.

Some of these houses pre-date planning regulations, some come from the time when county councillors could use the power of a Section 4 Motion (later called a Section 140 Motion) to force a planning application through the system regardless of the views of planning officials, many more were built during the boom years.

Yet, even though the sprawl of houses across the countryside might give the impression of a planning free-for-all, the kind of difficulties Breanndán Begley has encountered in his efforts to build a house on his own land are familiar to many in West Kerry where planning remains a contentious issue.

Since the Local Government Reform Act of 2014 curtailed the use of Section 140 Motions, planners have been freed from councillors canvassing on behalf of their constituents. Planners now refer to the Kerry County Development Plan 2015 – 2021 as the basis for their decisions and it takes a successful appeal to An Bord Pleanála to force a change of tack.

While planning applications can by rejected for a very wide number of reason, two are frequently cited in West Kerry: ‘injurious to the landscape’ and ‘extending an undesirable pattern of ribbon development’.

In an area as scenic as West Kerry it’s difficult for any house to have no impact on the landscape and even though the County Development Plan provides design guidelines for blending houses into a rural setting, following the guidelines is no guarantee of success with a planning application. Meanwhile, the ribbon development that planners now want to avoid was previously allowed spread across West Kerry to such an extent that it’s difficult to find any roadside site that doesn’t add to it.

Both the impact on the landscape and undesirable ribbon development were cited by the council when it rejected Breandán’s planning application last year. However, retired consulting engineer Jim Ryan, who supports Breanndán’s planning application, believes that in coming to this decision the council is failing on another commitment: to “promote the use of Irish within the wider community and provide linguistic support for the gaeltacht as an Irish-speaking community”.

“The County Development Plan includes aspirations about maintaining and developing gaeltacht areas. But how can you foster these areas when somebody like Breanndán can’t get planning permission on his own land?” he said.

Jim Ryan also argues that Breanndán’s house would fall within the existing settlement of Baile na bPoc and therefore should not be considered as an extension to ribbon development.

Set against this the County Development Plan points out that, “the difficulty for the Planning Authority is that the rural landscape can only accommodate a certain number of such houses before irreparable and irreversible damage is done…”

It would seem that Breanndán Begley’s hopes of living among his own people are bogged down in the very uncertain ground between this harsh assessment and the council’s aspirations about supporting rural (gaeltacht) communities. And he is not alone, but the difference between Breanndán and others who have gone down the same road is that he isn’t giving up.