This article is from page 28 of the 2012-11-20 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 28 JPG
CLARE County Council are set to review sections of the County Development Plan that prevent people from selling a property built in certain parts of the county for seven years after its construction.
Councillors decided at last night’s meeting of Clare County Council to review the situation, following a joint motion put forward by Cllrs PJ Kelly (FF), Tom McNamara (FF) and Joe Cooney (FG).
According to councillors, a change to the current County Development Plan could promote construction work in parts of the county and allow people who have been forced to emigrate to offload properties at home.
At present, a property owner can apply to Clare County Council for a condition of a planning permission to be changed.
The council yesterday declined a suggestion from Cllr PJ Kelly to advertise the existence of this process in the local media.
“These mechanisms were put in place to grant planning permission where development would otherwise not have been possible, not to prevent developed. Planning systems are about proper planning and not economic decisions and I think that is as it should be,” said Director of Services for Clare County Council, Ger Dollard.
“Anybody can apply to have the conditions removed under the current situation. But putting an ad like that in the paper would only give false hope to people. There are no easy solutions to this and I don’t think that just letting the conditions be changed is the way forward.”
Councillors yesterday put a timeframe of one month on a review of these sections of the County Development Plan.
Cllr PJ Kelly also questioned County Manager, Tom Coughlan, about the powers of a county manager to make changes to individual planning applications.
Cllr Kelly suggested that he had some information that he would make public in the future.
“I don’t know what Cllr Kelly is talking about. If you [Cllr Kelly] have information, put it out there and let’s deal with it. We can’t answer hypothetical questions about hypothetical situations,” said Mr Coughlan.
“There is a legal policy for changing the County Development Plan and it cannot be done by a notice of motion. There has been a framework set up for making these amendments. The director [Ger Dollard] has suggested that this matter be referred to that process and I think that is what we should do.”