Sustainable Communities and Housing Conference 2009

1. Sustainable Communities and Housing Conference 2009 PLANNING FOR A DIFFERENT FUTURE John O’Connor Chairperson An Bord Pleanála

2. Time to Reflect • Lessons from past – good and bad • Start laying groundwork now for resurgence • Opportunities to take advantage • Future must be different • Planning system must play part in stabilisation and resurgence

3. Past Decade: Good Outcomes • Legislation improved; national guidance expanded • Comprehensive planning framework • NSS, RPGs, DPs, LAPs, local framework plans • Strategic Development Zones (4) • Urban renewal • Improved design

4. Past Decade: Bad Outcomes • Unsustainable development patterns • Excessive featureless sprawl • Very unsuitable developments in towns and villages • Poor residential environments-noisy, poor natural light, car dominated etc. • Neglect of water resources/pollution • Damage to urban and rural landscapes

5. Reasons for Bad Outcomes • Bad development plan zoning • Bad planning decisions • Lack of adherence to development plan policies • Bad design, overdevelopment, car dominated, no space, poor residential environment • Inadequate account of infrastructure constraints/economics of provision • “any development is good development” syndrome

6. Planning System and Property Bubble • Planning system facilitated huge increase in output, but • Quantity over quality – quality of development was patchy • Became more developer led • Development less coherent • Less economic use of physical and social infrastructure and natural resources • Tax incentives not tied into planning system

7. Developer Led Planning • By law, development should be led by democratic plans • Developers and vested interests had undue influence on plan making • Developers had little regard to statutory development plans in buying land and designing schemes • Banks ignored planning parameters in lending • L.A.s failed to vindicate own DPs • ABP has had to refuse or amend many poor quality developments on appeal • Land values subverted - good business/community uses displaced

8. Development Pressures led to Systemic Failures • Councillors and management succumbed • Every place should be developed! • Local authorities failed to send right signals to developers • Conflicts between management and planners within local authorities • Minimal involvement in planning decisions by L.A. architects • ABP decisions frequently not heeded.

9. A Different Future • A ‘plan-led’ system: more efficient, equitable and publicly acceptable than ‘developer-led’ system • Development plans must be externally and internally consistent: zoning should reflect policy objectives, avoid exceptions • Plan for sustainable location – transport, energy, water, flooding (revisit existing zonings). • Properly adopted LAPs rather than ‘frameworks’ or developer ‘master plans’

10. A Different Future contd. • Pre-planning consultations and planning decisions should transparently vindicate D. P. objectives, policies • Need to implement Sustainable Communities Guidelines 2008 • Impending legislation will underpin • NAMA and mooted property tax present opportunities

11. National Asset Management Agency • NAMA land must maximise benefits to public • NAMA must work with planning system: DOEHLG and L.A.s roles • Opportunity for L.A.s to take hand in land markets • Assemble land banks – good sites for infrastructure, education, enterprise, amenities • Help maintain critical level of construction activity • Must be more than a financial exercise • Opportunity to begin tackling long standing issue of value of development land

12. Mooted Property Tax • Absence of proper property taxes contributed to bubble • Militates against sustainable efficient planning • Supplementary Budget – consideration of new property tax • Land value tax should be an element • LVT would drive sustainable development , promote logical behaviour and stabilise market • Reduce pressure to grant planning permissions to generate revenues • LVT would lead to review of development levies

13. Revival/Resurgence • Pro-active rather than reactive planning • Constructive plan-based engagement with developers • Local authorities should actively promote good developments (even small scale) in right locations e.g.town centres, brownfield, in-fill, serviced land • Facilitate services for such developments • Local authority architects should assist in suitable design • Concessions on development levies to incentivise developments • Focus major expansion on SDZs

14. Revival/Resurgence continued • Use CPO powers for sites (ABP will support) • Joint ventures to meet identified development needs • Tackle dereliction – strong legislation; small scale interventions may appeal now • Provide serviced sites at suitable locations in towns and villages to allow ‘self-design’ and to combat excessive one-off housing in countryside • Revised planning permissions could be fast-tracked by P.A.s and ABP • Compliance conditions could be reduced

15. Concluding • Planning has part to play in sustaining/ reviving construction/development • Planning must work to keep down costs/improve the economics and sustainability of development • Planners and architects in L.A.s working more closely with developers within planning framework; Department and ABP have supporting role. • NAMA and new property tax present opportunities for better planning longer term