Mayo councillor claims OPR is 'not fit for purpose'

A FIANNA Fáil councillor has called on the Government to 'look seriously' at the position of the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) after accusing the office of providing 'flawed' information on housing numbers.

Carnacon-based councillor, Al McDonnell, made the comment at the monthly meeting of the Castlebar Municipal District after councillors were informed that Mayo County Council will have to provide for three times the number of houses from what the Planning Regulator had allowed when the current Local Area Plans were being developed.

Last week, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, James Browne issued guidelines instructing local authorities to update housing targets in line with the revised National Planning Framework (NPF).

Cllr McDonnell said the new housing targets for Mayo vindicated local councillors who had attempted to rezone additional land for residential use when drawing up the Castlebar Local Area Plan in 2023 but were refused by the OPW.

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“We made strong recommendations in terms of numbers and zoning but the planning regulator waved his finger at us and said we were all wrong. They came up with a figure that the projected growth rate should be 501 units in the county per year. What has happened is they have come back to us and said they were completely wrong and the new projected growth rate should be 1,011 which is an increase of 127 percent.

Out of order

“What this proves is that the planning regulator is completely out of order and their mistreatment has resulted in us having to revise the whole situation. Because this has happened and their judgement and insistence was so flawed I think the government have to seriously look at the position of the planning regulator,” he said adding that the Planning Regulator is more powerful than the Taoiseach when it comes to planning issues and the latest developments shows it is 'not fit for purpose'.

Cllr McDonnell received full support from his fellow councillors with Cllr Cyril Burke claiming the system before the OPR was introduced was better.

Fine Gael councillor Ger Deere commented that it was not a shock to him to hear that councillors were right and the OPR was wrong but added that their 'misjudgement' has caused human and financial costs to young families.

Director of Services, John Condon explained that the council do not have the details on the new guidelines other than they will have to provide additional housing.

“If we have to amend the county development plan or town area plans, that detail will become known but there has to be discussions and workshops with councillors on how it will be done.

“For the last two or three development plans, in all cases we have been issued directives to reduce the amount of land being provided for additional housing. Now a certain reality has dawned that we cannot house unless we have land. So the numbers are going to be way more than what was finally adopted last year,” he said.

Mr Condon also explained that there may be an opportunity to 'to fix some of the anomalies' in planning which councillors have been discussing.