Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 October 2020
260. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if planning will continue to be granted to farmer family members if they are not the intended farmer, as many people can now work from home in other areas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31036/20]
Amharc ar fhreagraI understand that the Deputy is referring in his question to applications for planning permission for rural housing and in particular to applications by members of farming families who do not farm the landholding in which the site of the proposed house is located.
Under the Guidelines for Planning Authorities on Sustainable Rural Housing 2005, planning authorities are required to frame the planning policies in their development plans in a balanced and measured way that ensures the housing needs of rural communities are met, while avoiding excessive urban-generated housing and haphazard development, particularly in those areas near cities and towns that are under pressure from urban generated development.
The Guidelines identify four rural area types in respect of which planning authorities may formulate policies for ‘urban generated’ and ‘rural generated’ rural housing. Section 3.2.3 of the Guidelines suggests that in areas “under major urban influence”, planning authorities may define “rural generated” housing need for “Persons who are an intrinsic part of the rural community” and for “Persons working full-time or part-time in rural areas”.
The National Planning Framework (the NPF) provides an important strategic basis for interpreting the 2005 Guidelines. National Policy Objective (NPO) 15 of the NPF fully supports the concept of the sustainable development of rural areas by encouraging growth and arresting decline in areas that have experienced low population growth or decline in recent decades, while simultaneously indicating the need to manage certain areas around cities and towns that are under strong urban influence and under pressure from uncoordinated and ribbon-type development, in order to avoid over-development of those areas.
National Policy Objective 15 is supplemented by National Policy Objective 19, which aims to ensure that a policy distinction is made between areas experiencing significant overspill development pressure from urban areas, particularly within the commuter catchment of cities, towns and centres of employment, and other remoter and weaker rural areas where population levels may be low and/or declining. NPF Policy NPO19 is intended to tie in with the generally established Guidelines approach whereby considerations of social (intrinsic part of the community) or economic (persons working full or part time in the area) need may be applied by planning authorities in rural areas under urban influence.
The 2005 Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines are framed in the context of the National Spatial Strategy (NSS) 2002. The reference to ‘working full or part time’ in rural areas, is stated to “normally encompass” persons involved in full-time farming, forestry, the marine or other resource-related occupations, as well as those whose work is “intrinsically linked to rural areas”. The 2005 Guidelines did not anticipate digital home working to the extent that is now possible.
Given the many technological and other changes in policy and in wider society since 2002/5, the superseding of the NSS by the National Planning Framework (NPF) in 2018, together with other factors, the Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines now require updating, in a broader rural development and settlement context, taking into consideration factors that include home working.
My Department intends to bring forward updated and comprehensive Guidelines that will fully reflect NPF objectives and will bring clarity to the issue of rural housing. In the interim, the NPF objectives together with the 2005 Guidelines, enable planning authorities to continue to draft and adopt county development plan policies for one-off housing in rural areas.
