The views of professional planners were "largely ignored" by the Minister for the Environment in new guidelines published on housing in rural areas, the main body representing planners has said.
The Irish Planning Institute (IPI) said the document Sustainable Rural Housing, published recently by the Minister for the Environment, would "seriously prejudice the substantial infrastructure by the Government in rural towns and villages".
Speaking at the institute's AGM, the IPI president Mr Iain Douglas said there was little acknowledgement of the real social and economic costs associated with one-off housing. He said the guidelines run directly against the principles of proper planning and sustainable development.
"It is likely that the guidelines will lead to a significant acceleration in an already highly unsustainable pattern of urban-based housing development in rural areas," he said.
Despite statements in the guidelines about the need to adhere to "good planning", development would be drawn to "visually vulnerable" areas and the impact would eventually lead to "degradation and loss of rural character", Mr Douglas added.
He said that before issuing the guidelines, the Department of the Environment should have considered the medium to long-term impact of one-off house building and what impact the addition of up to 250,000 new one-off homes in the next 20 years would have on both the countryside and urban areas.
"The approach to rural housing as set out in the guidelines amounts to an attempt to dismantle the planning system so carefully built up over the past number of years and to override the fundamental purpose of the Planning and Development Act 2000 as it applies to rural areas," Mr Douglas said.
The IPI has made a formal submission to the Minister for the Environment on the document.