Proposals to zone hundreds of acres of land for housing around 29 villages in Co Laois could "erode the quality of the rural landscape and have serious consequences for water quality," according to the Heritage Council.
In a "heritage appraisal" of the draft Laois County Development Plan, carried out by Aoife Cassidy and Associates, the council noted that enough land had been zoned around the villages to accommodate the forecast 2020 population of the county.
"The settlement strategy would seem to spread growth very thinly over the whole county. Such a dispersal of new development could have a negative impact on landscape character, views of special amenity value or interest and environmental quality."
It says no basis is provided for this "ad-hoc" settlement strategy apart from the stated aim of "facilitating the equal distribution and location of development.
"This situation will make it extremely difficult to implement the laudable criteria of consolidation, enhancement of urban shape and form, creation of a sense of place etc, as the areas zoned are just too large to regulate in this manner," the appraisal states.
It argues that the current zoning provision for the villages of Co Laois "has the capacity to generate large-scale unco-ordinated development in contravention of the principles of sustainable development, with potentially significant losses".
The heritage appraisal calls on the council to draw up "clear, distinct policies" for all urban settlements and for rural areas outside them. It also asks it to reconsider zoning proposals until design statements are prepared for each village.
