Minister targets garden grabbers
GARDEN grabbing – the practice in which developers concrete over gardens to cram in houses or apartments – could be coming to an end as a result of fresh guidelines.
Environment Minister Arlene Foster said she recognised the "public concern on this matter" and, pending the outcome of a policy consideration, planners had been issued with a new circular on the need to preserve the character of neighbourhoods.
News of the guidelines has emerged amid mounting concern at cramming and garden grabbing – reflected in a number of recent front-page News Letter reports about the growing outcry among residents groups across the Province.
POLICY
Ms Foster said she was putting together a joint group of officials for a policy consideration on the issue.
Garden grabbing – which can prove irresistible to homeowners who find that their house and garden is worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds – is assisted partly by the Regional Development Strategy.
It promotes developing brownfield sites, which at present includes gardens. A similar policy exists in Great Britain, and politicians across the UK have been pushing to change that so that gardens are not considered brownfield.
South Belfast Alliance MLA Anna Lo – who lodged written questions to the minister in the Assembly – claims the practice, and a general trend of over- development, is rife in her constituency area and wants to see it tackled - starting with a change in policy.
Ms Foster said she recognised the "public concern on this matter," and said pending "the outcome of the policy consideration by a joint group of officials within both the Department of the Environment and the Department for Regional Development, I asked some months ago that all Planning Service staff be reminded of the need to consider fully the impact on the established residential character when processing applications for new residential development.
ASSESSMENT
"To this end a planning circular on the assessment of planning applications for residential development in urban areas, villages and other small settlements was issued to Planning Service operational staff in August 2007."
More than a dozen residents groups were represented a recent meeting in south Belfast, where a newly-formed organisation called NI Residents Coalition launched what it hopes is the beginning of a turning of the tide against excessive property speculation.
Politicians, including a number of MLAs such as the DUP's Jimmy Spratt and Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey, attended and said they had been inundated with complaints about over-development.
Mr Maskey said: "Because of the scale of some of these big developments, the residential character of huge swathes of south Belfast is being lost."
Ms Lo welcomed Mrs Foster's circular but said policy "needs to go a lot further" to stop over development in residential areas.
She said she wanted to see "restricted planning permission for apartments," to kerb developers aiming at the buy-to-rent market.
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Monday 28 May 2012
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