Cork planning applicants warned in-person meetings with officials will delay decisions
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People hoping to build homes in Co. Cork will be able to have in-person meetings with council officials if they wish, but are being warned they will get a speedier decision if they meet officials online.
During the covid pandemic, Cork County Council moved all meetings between planning applicants and officials online. Following the ending of restrictions, the council has been slow to bring back in-person meetings.
Cork County Council’s chief executive, Tim Lucey, said the planning department's resources are stretched due to a spike in applications in the last two years. Councillors have now been successful in their efforts to get officials to agree, where possible, to hold in-person meetings with any applicant who wants one.
However, Mr Lucey has warned that developers and one-off housing applicants will get a speedier response if they take the online option.
Independent councillor, Danny Collins, won support from colleagues when he demanded officials revert to traditional face-to-face pre-planning meetings with applicants, which he claimed are more productive. Mr Collins said he had received a number of calls from constituents who complained that online meetings are drawing out the planning process and adding to their costs as they have to pay more to their engineers and architects due to the extended timeframe.
“Since covid, applicants are receiving phone calls outlining problems or that meetings have to be online. We have to get back to face-to-face meetings,’ Mr Collins said.
Fianna Fáil councillor, Joe Carroll, claimed it is now taking an inordinate length of time for people seeking planning permission to build a home on their own land. He described this as a "ridiculous" situation when the country is in the grip of a housing crisis.
In a written response, the council’s senior planner, Michael Lynch, said his officials had to deal with about 1,000 pre-planning meetings per year since 2021. This did not include additional interactions between the officials and applicants as they sought further information on projects, Mr Lynch said.
"It should be noted many prospective applicants and their representatives continue to opt for the online service as it offers opportunities for a wide range of efficiencies, including in terms of travel time for all parties, the number of attendees that can be facilitated online relative to in-person, and the number of meetings that can be facilitated by the planning authority in any given day such that all the necessary reporting sections can have the required input," Mr Lynch wrote.
He said those seeking in-person meeting may experience longer waiting times. Mr Lucey said the planning department is stretched as “there has been a significant increase in planning applications since covid.”
“Also, there are many pre-planning meetings where the quality of the information outlined at the meeting is less than sufficient. If you want to go back to full in-person pre-planning meetings, and I’m not in favour of this, it will slow things down even more,” Mr Lucey said.