North Tipperary County Council is struggling to cope with a surge in planning applications.
The increase is due to attempts by prospective homeowners to avoid paying new development levies to be introduced in March.
This has led to the council refusing to engage in pre-planning consultations. The total number of planning applications during the final two months of the year was 538. This is 47 per cent of the number of planning applications decided in 2003.At the December meeting of North Tipperary County Council it was revealed that prospective homeowners could avoid paying out thousands of euro under a new development contribution scheme if they submitted their planning applications by January 14th.
The new levies, which will not be adopted until councillors agree on them at their monthly meeting in February, need to be introduced by March 10th. The environment and planning director with North Tipperary County Council, Mr Paddy Heffernan, said the increase in the number of planning applications was created by the council "knowingly" because a "development contribution scheme needed to be adopted by the council by March 10th under the Planning and Development Act 2000".
The council has put contingency plans in place to ensure that the applications are processed before the deadline. A planning decision must be made about an application within eight weeks of it being lodged, or permission is granted by default. Staff involved with the forward planning and planning enforcement sections have been drawn into the council's development control department to deal with the applications.
Mr Heffernan said planners would work overtime at weekends and at nights to process the "huge surge" in applications. "Once we reach March 10th, once that date passes, we will be down to a relatively smaller number of applications and the blip will be out of the system," said Mr Heffernan.Under the development contribution scheme it is proposed that a fully-serviced house of 150 square metres will incur a charge of €5,520.
A house of the same size not availing of services like sewage and water will incur a charge of €2,580.
An unserviced rural house of 125 square metres floor area will incur a charge of €2,150.
The developer of a fully serviced house of the same size will have to pay €4,600.