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The Belfast Urban Area Plan, in advocating a modest planning strategy, recognized planners were working in an outdated urban design largely created by explosive growth in the late 1800s. Replacing this landscape with the same speed would leave the same legacy for future planners, a situation the Plan strongly discouraged. It supported slower redevelopment, citing the city's experience rebuilding industrial-era housing, after the high-rise fad had passed, as an exemplar. In light of these suggestions, the Plan recognized the uncertainties in Belfast's future, especially the growth or decline of population and economic changes. These uncertainties must be acknowledged, and flexible plans designed with them in mind, for any to succeed. In addition to new approaches to planning, the report established a greenbelt
around the city. Today the greenbelt is a boundary for the rural fringe,
an area the BUA is intent on protecting from single family development.
It is governed by strict planning to avoid scattered rural development
along the main country roads, building permits are only issued when people
must live near their employment. Examples of such cases are farmers and
managers of commercial and industrial sites. This control is only expected
to increase as the Department of the Environment, responsible for the area,
responds to loopholes and the city continues its outward expansion. |