‘You’re going to see more and more young people leaving the peninsula’

KERRY County Council planning policies have again come in for scathing criticism from West Kerry following yet another decision to refuse permission for a home on family land because it would “injure the visual amenities of the area”.

In May 2022, local auctioneer Mike Kennedy applied for planning permission for a 237-square-metre house on land in Garfinny that has been farmed by his family for generations, but he was refused for reasons that have become painfully familiar in West Kerry.

The land is zoned ‘rural general’, meaning it can absorb a reasonable amount of development according to the Kerry County Development Plan. However, the planning inspector pointed out that the one-off house in a rural area that is “under significant urban pressure” from Dingle was on a prominent site that could be seen from the Mail Road and would have a “high visual impact”.

The planner also found that the house “would give rise to an extension of undesirable ribbon development in this rural area which would interfere with the character of the landscape which is necessary to preserve”.

Mike appealed the council’s decision to An Bord Pleanála, but the planning appeals board copper-fastened the local authority’s ruling, and he is now forced to accept that he will never be able to build on his family farm.

“Garfinny will always be home to me, but thanks to KCC planners and an Bord Pleanála, I will not live there again it seems,” Mike said this week in a social-media post that has received an outpouring of local sympathy and support.

Mike’s case is typical of a planning issue that has beset rural West Kerry, where everywhere is scenic and it is almost impossible to build a house without getting in the way of protected ‘views and prospects’. However, planning decisions that appear to put visitors’ enjoyment of the scenery above locals’ perceived right to build on family land is an ongoing cause of anger and frustration.

This anger is exacerbated by apparent inconsistencies in planning decisions. Mike pointed to recent decisions to grant planning permission in other West Kerry areas that also have a pattern of ribbon development and are more scenic than Garfinny.

“If planners didn’t want ribbon development they shouldn’t have allowed those houses in the first place. They should have planned ahead and made reasonable allowances for local people to live in their own areas,” said Mike.

“I know it’s an elevated site and planners have to follow guidelines, but they should follow common sense as well,” he added. “Farmers’ children should be allowed build on their land, especially now when we are in the midst of a housing crisis. These policies are pushing us off the land and into [Dingle] town where we are in competition with other local buyers. There are very few houses on the market in Dingle, and the increased demand results in higher house prices.”

Mike said there are currently fewer than 35 houses for sale in West Kerry, which is a historical low.

“Every day I see young people who can’t get on the property ladder because of a lack of supply, which in turn drives up house prices,” he said, warning that: “You’re going to see more and more young people leaving the peninsula.”

Mike, who will run as a Labour Party candidate in the forthcoming local elections, believes people with a genuine connection to the land should be facilitated, not blocked, from living in rural West Kerry, as long as they don’t plan to build a holiday home or “some kind of a monstrosity”.

In his case, the connection with the land is very real because he works part time with his father on the small family farm. Over the coming weeks, he will have to drive from where he lives in Lios Póil to Garfinny to tend to lambing ewes, sometimes returning home, drenched to the skin, in the middle of the night.

Ironically Mike’s commute to the family farm isn’t seen as a reason to grant planning permission, even though planning permission has been turned down, on grounds of environmental sustainability, for rural houses that would involve a commute to Dingle to go to the shop.