Draft Minutes 13th Oct - Fingal County Council
Draft Minutes 13th Oct - Fingal County Council
Draft Minutes 13th Oct - Fingal County Council
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
2030<br />
Allowing certain individuals to be excluded from this policy would contradict this<br />
overall approach.<br />
This motion would unfairly allow certain individuals to be favourably treated in<br />
comparison to all other families with connections within the rural area.<br />
The motion if adopted would allow the sale of the site on the open market, thereby<br />
opening up the possibility of urban-generated housing development on the site.<br />
Government policy as articulated by the National Spatial Strategy and the<br />
Sustainable Rural Housing: Guidelines for Planning Authorities of April 2005,<br />
classifies the rural area of <strong>Fingal</strong> as “an area under strong urban influence”<br />
where the housing requirements of the rural community should be facilitated but<br />
urban-generated housing should be directed to areas zoned for new residential<br />
development in cities, towns and villages. This approach is reflected in the<br />
Regional Planning Guidelines for the Greater Dublin Area (5.2.2). The inclusion in<br />
the <strong>Fingal</strong> Development Plan of objectives facilitating the development of rural<br />
housing outside of the provisions of the rural settlement strategy would thus run<br />
counter to national and regional policy.<br />
Finally, Strategic Policy No. 12, adopted by the <strong>Council</strong> in <strong>Oct</strong>ober 2009, is to:<br />
Provide viable options for the retention of the rural community by the promotion<br />
of a controlled growth of the rural villages and clusters balanced with careful<br />
restriction of residential development in the countryside.<br />
The current and proposed rural settlement strategies provide for the<br />
implementation of this Strategic Policy. The exemption of certain sites from<br />
compliance with the settlement strategy would undermine the Strategic Policy<br />
and lead to an increase in the number of houses being developed in the rural area<br />
and inappropriate and unsustainable settlement patterns, giving rise to problems<br />
which include:<br />
• Threats to surface water and ground water quality from private waste<br />
water treatment systems, having regard in particular to the poor<br />
percolation characteristics of much of <strong>Fingal</strong>’s soil;<br />
• Unsustainable car dependent commuting patterns;<br />
• High costs of public services in comparison to more consolidated<br />
development patterns;<br />
• Erosion of the rural character and visual quality of the countryside and of<br />
the potential of the rural landscape as a resource for tourism;<br />
• Extensive land take (minimum 0.2 ha per house) resulting in the loss of<br />
farming land and food production capacity;<br />
• Undermining of the viability of normal farming activities (see NSS);<br />
• Compromising of routes and locations for infrastructure including wind<br />
energy (see NSS);<br />
• Loss of biodiversity.