Donegal County Council is to introduce new guidelines aimed at cutting out inconsistencies in how planning policies are interpreted by its staff.
A senior executive planner, Ms Gaye Moynihan, said the new "policy and practice guidelines" would have been introduced even if there had been no planning controversy, "because we are a bigger and more complex organisation".
About 17 people work in the council's planning section and the combination of "a big staff, people with different views and policies that were not clearly spelled out" had made the guidelines necessary, she said. These internal guidelines will be put before county councillors in March and will then be put in a manual to be issued to all planners.
Ms Moynihan said the guidelines would ensure "a more formalised system of getting consistency and common interpretation" of policies in the new county development plan, which came into force in October. Examples include a definition of "reasonable proximity" in scenic areas and clarifying when holiday-home developments can be allowed in Category 2 scenic areas.
"Certainly a lack of consistency has been one of the complaints that the public has levied against us," Ms Moynihan said.
A typical complaint was that planning could be refused on a site and then granted years later. But Ms Moynihan said such cases were the result of a change in circumstances, such as a new development plan. She said people also complained about not being allowed to put in dormer windows or ornamental front porches when their neighbours had been given permission.
"In the case of design issues, it was an area where we felt there was too much subjectivity by individual planners from case to case," she said. A design guide has been included with the new development plan to tackle this.
Planning has proved controversial in Donegal in recent months since the county manager tried to have a senior executive planner, Mr Gerry Convie, dismissed from his post. Mr Convie is now challenging the dismissal decision.
Ms Moynihan said if anybody had any complaints or allegations they should come forward with them. She said that in some 40 public meetings held while drawing up the new development plan, she had received no complaints about any "brown-envelope system".