Mayo developer gets 85 percent levy reduction following successful appeal

A Mayo developer has been successful in getting €87,000 levy imposed as part of planning conditions to re-contour agriculture land reduced by 85 percent.

Gene McConway of Lough Lannagh House, Mountain View, Castlebar was successful in appealing a development contribution levy of €87,474 which was imposed by Mayo County Council as part of a planning condition.

The Castlebar-based developer was granted planning permission by Mayo County Council late April to re-contour five hectares of agricultural land at Derrycoosh, Castlebar using up to 165,500 tonnes of imported soil and stones for the consequential benefit to agriculture.

However, one of the planning conditions included a development contribution levy of €87,474 which Mr McConway claims is 'exorbitant' for 'small scale farming activity'.

He appealed the inclusion of the levy to An Coimisiún Pleanala who agreed that the levy classification was not appropriate for the development and reduced the levy to €12,496.25.

READ: Mayo all-girls secondary school to go co-ed

In the appeal, Fintan Morrin of The Planning Partnership, on behalf of Mr McConway, stated that the planning authority were treating the development as 'a commercial, rather than an agricultural, undertaking'.

He stated that the applicant comes from a farming background and intends to purchase the land and for it to be part of an existing family farm holding in the wider area.

In the application to Mayo County Council, it was stated that the 'imported clean, uncontaminated soil' will be sourced from 'greenfield construction sites in the wider Castlebar area' associated with the applicant.

In his report to An Coimisiún Pleanála, the Inspector Conor McGrath noted that the contribution rate applied by Mayo County Council was Class 14 which is for 'Landfilling / raising of site (inert material) for non-agricultural purposes'.

“I note that the primary purpose of the import and recontouring activities is stated to be to improve the use of the land for agriculture. No other use is proposed, or is indeed likely, for these lands and this has not been disputed in planning authority reports.

“I therefore conclude that the proposed activity, being for agricultural purposes, does not fall within Class 14 of the Scheme, as applied by the planning authority in this instance,” he stated.

Mr McGrath concluded that the proposed development would be subject to Class 16 of the Development Contribution Scheme which is 'Development not coming within any of the foregoing Classes'. He added that such contributions would be chargeable at a rate of €250 per 0.1 ha.

He recommended that the planning condition be amended and the developer shall pay to the planning authority a financial contribution of €12,496.25.

The Commission of An Coimisiún Pleanála accepted the recommendations of Mr McGrath and added that the contribution shall be paid prior to commencement of development or in such phased payments as the planning authority may facilitate.

The subject site which is approximately 5km from Castlebar is described as comprising a 'boggy heath that does not appear to currently be in active agricultural use'.

An environment and planning report prepared for the application stated that a ten year operational term is proposed to carry out the work which will be carried out in four phases.

The report stated 'there will be no interference with the existing site soils in that the imported soil will be placed over the existing surface, and graded appropriately to an average depth of approximately 1.8m across the site'.