Can Mayo's county town afford to turn away €8.5m. investment in housing? 

OPINION

IT is regrettable that a plan to regenerate a strategic brownfield site at the junction of Mountain View and Stephen Garvey Way in Castlebar has run into planning problems at a time when dereliction and lack of housing are among the county town's biggest challenges.

The proposed development, by developer Harold Conway, consisted of 26 apartments as well as a number of commercial units on land that is clearly an eyesore. The project was expected to be an investment of €8.5 million, creating or supporting in the order of 100 or more jobs in the town along with housing for up to 78 people on completion.

However, planning permission has now been refused by Mayo County Council on the grounds that its size and scale (five storeys) was unsuitable as well as the fact a lack of car parking existed in the vicinity.

Now this commentary is not designed to apportion blame or find fault with one side or the other in this case.

It's simply to try to find middle ground so that development which is badly needed can proceed for the betterment of a community sick to its teeth of decay, dereliction and a lack of housing provision.

This writer is wondering what did or did not occur at the pre-planning stage that could have avoided this impasse being reached.

From studying sections of the documentation in relation to the planning application, it appears that contradictions existed between some aspects of national planning policies and those considered to be local planning policies.

For example, the developer was clearly in the view that the ongoing national housing crisis justified a presumption in favour of attracting more housing development, in the right location, in keeping with the original masterplan for the site in question.

The developer quoted as follows from the Report of the Housing Commission: “After a decade of pent-up demand caused by chronic undersupply, a step-change in building output is essential to address the housing deficit and to meet ongoing requirements. This can only be addressed through emergency action… This requires exceptional and radical measures to deliver a substantial amount of housing in the shortest time practicable.”

This, the developer added, has been more recently emphasised under the government’s Delivering Homes, Building Communities 2025-2030 document, which outlined: “We are in a housing crisis, one that requires a rapid response. A response at pace and at scale. Achieving the objectives set out in the document will require more than any single policy, department or sector can deliver on its own. It demands a joined-up, long-term national effort.”

While the council planners surely took these matters into account, their considerations, in ultimately refusing the application, came down to concerns about the visually obtrusive nature of a five-storey block on a prominent corner, the physical over dominance of the structure, the likelihood of it endangering public safety by reason of traffic hazard and the significant shortfall in car parking provision.

It was very much a case of the council and the applicant coming from completely opposing positions with very little common ground being shared.

However, it will not go unnoticed to many local people that there is an exceptionally tall building (student accommodation) at the lower end of Stephen Garvey Way. It is on a junction, where a roundabout exists, and this location has never officially been deemed a danger to public safety.

Now the issue is likely to go before the planning appeals board where, one hopes, a solution will be found and that a major investment planned for Castlebar will not be lost to another town.