The draft planning guidelines, announced yesterday by the Dáil Minister for Environment, are unlikely to be sufficiently adequate to ensure that infrastructure is provided in tandem with housing development according to the Labour environment spokesperson Joanna Tuffy.

Ms Tuffy believes the way to ensure that housing development is done on a phased basis in tandem with the provision of necessary infrastructure and facilities, is by amending the Planning and Development Act 2000.

She said: "The Planning and Development Act 2000 should be amended to require phased development of housing in tandem with infrastructure.

"This would be a much stronger reform by the Minister than the amending of the Planning Guidelines. It could be amended along the lines of the current provisions in the act in relation to Strategic Development Zones."

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According to Tuffy, the Minister himself admits the weak nature of planning guidelines when he proposes to amend the Planning and Development Act 2000 so that planning decisions "must be consistent with" with the guidelines, replacing the current wording that requires councillors "to have regard" to guidelines.

She said: "The Minister's guidelines are still only guidelines whereas an Act passed by the Oireachtas would be legally binding on local authorities and developers."

She explained that putting legal requirements into the Planning and Development Act for phased housing development in tandem with necessary infrastructure and facilities has already been done in relation to Strategic Development Zones, of which Adamstown is an example.

"The law for a Strategic Development Zones," she said "is clearly set out in section 168 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. It is the underpinning of the phasing and provision of infrastructure in law as opposed to guidelines that has made the Adamstown Plan so successful.

"The Minister should also consider making further designations as Strategic Development Zones of land already zoned for future housing development.

"It is important to note that the new guidelines will not prevent councillors from zoning lands against the advice of the County Manager," she concluded.

(VB/JM)