An "astonishing number" of poorly designed 1970s-style suburban housing estates are being "tacked on" to towns and villages throughout the State, according to the chairman of An Bord Pleanála.
Speaking yesterday on the publication of its annual report for 2003, Mr John O'Connor complained that "a lot of developers still don't appreciate the importance of good design" in integrating new housing into existing towns and villages.
"Lack of design quality at planning stage can result in developments that offer a poor living environment to future occupants and the general acceptance of aesthetic mediocrity," he said. More attention to design would "pay dividends".
"The board has refused permission for several schemes because the design was incompatible." Some were reminiscent of "1970s-standard suburban stuff" which paid little or no attention to the 1999 residential density guidelines.
Proposals to add 250 houses to villages that might only have a population of 1,000 had to be looked at in terms of their impact on those who would live in these new housing areas as well as on local services, such as schools and shops.
Mr O'Connor said An Bord Pleanála would like to see "more compact" developments which were designed as natural extensions to towns and villages instead of "sprawling housing schemes" remote from public transport services.
Much of the pressure for such schemes was being felt in places like Rochfortbridge, Co Westmeath, and other areas within commuting distance of Dublin. The same phenomenon was also apparent around other urban centres, such as Galway.
He also complained about the poor quality of many student housing schemes levered by the "Section 50" tax incentive for providing student accommodation, saying the Department of Education's guidelines only covered space standards.
The board's chairman agreed that the Government's "Sustainable Rural Housing" guidelines were affecting its decisions on appeals involving one-off houses in the countryside, for which the approval rate has risen to 18 per cent.
Of the 350 cases determined since the guidelines took effect earlier this year, 82 per cent were refused.
Mr O'Connor said the National Roads Authority's previous policy of not appealing against one-off houses on national routes "probably did result in quite a lot of development happening on these routes" in the past 10 years.
Overall, the intake of appeals this year was "very heavy", with a 12 per cent increase over 2003, and is heading for 5,300 cases. But the board was determining 82 per cent of them within the statutory 18-week period fixed in 1994.
The chairman pointed out that the proportion of local planning decisions appealed to An Bord Pleanála continues to be fairly constant, at just 7 per cent. However, the share of decisions reversed fell from 33 per cent in 2002 to 30 per cent in 2003.
Appeals by developers also fared better last year, with 22 per cent resulting in grants of permission compared to 20 per cent in 2002.
