Ireland's planning system was zoned to cater to four million extra inhabitants during the Celtic Tiger, according to a just published review. The highly valued land destined for development will now be rezoned for agricultural purposes, costing tens of billions of losses to the taxpayer, the Irish Examiner reported.
The review of the country's planning practices was published by An Taisce, Ireland's conservation and preservation body. It said that those benefiting from the Celtic Tiger property boom envisaged a doubling of the country's population. More than 100,000 acres were zoned for residential purposes. And this reckless zoning inflated the value of the land.
"There is no doubt a systemic failure of planning in Ireland helped inflate the property bubble, leaving in its wake a great deal of poor quality development, reckless over zoning, chaotic sprawl, a legacy of ghost development and widespread environmental degradation," said the report.
Areas of natural beauty on the nation's coastline were particularly hard hit. Donegal had the worst record, the report found, but other problematic regions were County Clare and County Cork.
The report cited the town of Ennis as an egregious example: planning designations would have allowed the town's size to shoot up by four, from a population of 26,000 to 100,000.
A spokesman for the environmental body said that this would haunt Irish society for generations.
"Bad planning is not victim free. The analysis shows that there is a very strong correlation between councils that have scored poorly and a range of negative socioeconomic and environmental outcomes."
On its website, An Taisce says an independent planning regulator is needed "to guard against endemic corruption... at the heart of Ireland's planning system."
