The Planning System and Flood Risk Management - Offaly County ...

Flood risk and objectives for zoning of land for development4.24 The zoning of land for development is the critical stage for planning authoritiesto address the issue of flooding. As emphasised above, information on thescreening and flood risk assessment should be ready and available to theelected members to assist them in arriving at decisions about where developmentwill be located and how it will be constructed and used over its life-time.These guidelines require planning authorities to establish a clear evidencebase in showing how the sequential and hierarchical approach to avoidance,substitution and mitigation of development in flood risk areas has been appliedin the decision-making stages of plan preparation and adoption.What to do with existing undeveloped, zoned areas at risk offlooding4.25 Information about flooding and flood risk is improving and will improvefurther as a result of national exercises undertaken by OPW and others, andimplementation of these guidelines. Future flood risk assessments requiredto support the development plan process may highlight existing, undevelopedareas which, on their own merits, were zoned for development in previousdevelopment plans but which new information indicates may now, or in thefuture, be at risk of flooding.4.26 In such cases as set out above, planning authorities should reconsider thezoning objective for any such lands where flood risk is assessed to be potentiallysignificant and likely to increase in the future. This should be done as part ofthe overall plan preparation and on the basis of the proper planning andsustainable development of the area, giving appropriate weight to flood riskconsiderations. Following this reconsideration, local authorities may decideto:• remove the existing zoning for all types of development on the basis ofthe unacceptable high level of flood risk;• replace the existing zoning with a zoning or a specific objective for lessvulnerable uses;• require preparation of a detailed local area plan, informed by a moredetailed flood risk assessment to address zoning and development issuesin more detail and prior to any development;• reduce the zoned area and change or add zoning categories to reflectthe flood risk; and/or• specify, in exceptional circumstances and where the criteria of theJustification Test have been met, design of structural or non-structuralflood risk management measures as pre-requisites to development in33Planning Guidelines