A new approach to resolving planning rows over new developments may be provided by a pilot scheme backed by the Heritage Council in two Co Sligo villages.
The scheme involves the preparation of "village design statements".
Such an approach has been used in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, but this is the first time it is being done in this State.
Sligo County Council and the Heritage Council jointly funded the scheme, which brought in consultants who have done similar work in the UK.
The two villages selected for the project, which started last October, were Grange in the north of the county, and Ballisodare, five miles from Sligo. Completed village design statements have been presented to local people.
Sligo County Council's heritage officer, Siobhan Ryan, said the scheme provides "a strategy to ensure appropriate and necessary new development in the village is designed and located in such a way as to reflect local character and tradition, creating high standards for the future".
Ms Ryan said it was "very much a community vision" as there was extensive consultation with local people and any developer, small or large, would have to take it into account.
Grange and Ballisodare are among 10 villages identified in the Sligo County Development Plan as having "the potential capacity to accommodate new development" because of their proximity to Sligo town. They have already seen considerable housing development in recent years.
The population of Ballisodare has doubled since 1996 and this is expected to increase further. One new estate alone has 400 houses - the 1996 census found the village had a population of just 612 people.
Ms Ryan said the process took a different approach than would have been followed in the UK.
There it would be "planning to conserve", but this was "not an appropriate model to apply to the Irish case". In the UK, development would effectively be frozen.
However, it is not a statutory document, and there is, therefore, no legal obligation on developers to follows its guidelines. Ms Ryan said she did not believe this was necessary as there were already statutory obligations where all developers had to apply for planning permission.
The scheme is, therefore, not the same as a local area plan, which the new planning Act provides for, but which has not yet been drawn up.
"The local authorities, in considering planning applications, will have due cognisance of these documents," she said. The scheme provided a context or framework for all new development. In the past, development would have taken place in a vacuum but now it would happen in the context of the village design statements, and it was local people telling developers what they wanted.
Consultation with local people at different stages had built awareness and opened lines of communication in a positive way.
The two communities involved are equally positive about the scheme. Mr Tom Corcoran of Ballisodare Community Council said they were delighted to be chosen as a heritage village. It gave local people a pro-active role in the planning process. Although it was not a statutory document, it was a benchmark to ensure best practice in future development.
He said the process was carried out in a very democratic way. People who did not want all development halted were nervous initially but the fact that it was a reference document, rather than a binding one, had eased their concerns. It had identified "the good and the not-so-good" about the village and he believed planners would take note of it. Residents had to accept that it was a satellite village and that there would be more development.
A priority was to have more community and leisure facilities and to involve young people living on new estates in village life, Mr Corcoran said.
The scheme highlights the many attractive features of the older parts of Ballisodare but also raises concerns about the quality of modern developments, "which have used suburban density standards, monotonous road and building design and inappropriate materials".
The cost of the scheme, involving Manogue Architects of Bangor, Co Down, and Soltys Brewster Consulting of Cardiff, was €30,000 for the two villages. Another two villages will now be selected and an evaluation of the scheme will then be carried out.
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