Property-Led Urban,Town and Rural Regeneration in Ireland: Positive and Perverse Outcomes in Different Spatial and Socio-Economic Contexts

In the mid-1980s, fiscal incentives were introduced to encourage the construction and refurbishment of residential developments in declining inner-city districts in Ireland. These were abolished in 2006 but, during the intervening period, their focus was extended to include: large towns, small towns and a large rural region. Concurrently, the context for their implementation changed as an economic boom replaced prolonged economic stagnation. This article examines the changing design of these incentives, their outputs and their intended and unintended impacts. It argues that, initially they were successful in drawing development into declining neighbourhoods, but the extension of their lifespan and spatial focus created negative perverse impacts and deadweight costs for the exchequer. Thus it concludes that this regeneration strategy is useful for animating development in brownfield sites, where there is demand for housing but also barriers to its development. If applied to rural areas where housing demand is weaker, they can generate excess supply and limited benefits for public investment.     

Planning for Rural Housing in the Republic of Ireland: From National Spatial Strategies to Development Plans

This paper examines the role of spatial planning as a policy framework for managing rural housing within an integrated territorial development strategy. The paper focuses on the Republic of Ireland, which provides a useful case for analysing spatial planning and rural housing relationships, due to the State's recent shift towards spatial planning (formalized with the publication of the Irish National Spatial Strategy), as well as the level of housing construction that has been observed in an increasingly post-productivist countryside (triggered by counter-urbanization flows, increased affluence and demands for second holiday homes, etc.). The paper reviews all policy instruments that have been used to manage rural housing at various scales (from national strategies to local level development plans). It is argued that while spatial planning adopts an integrative vocabulary, as policy moves down the spatial scale hierarchy, multi-dimensional spatial goals are implemented through traditional, narrow land-use regulation. This often leads to rural housing being addressed in isolation from its wider social and economic context, disconnecting housing from wider rural community issues and ultimately failing to deliver a coordinated and coherent spatial policy for managing rural settlements.