The complaint

The Office of the Ombudsman investigated the regularity of the reactivation of an application for the development of a hotel after this was withdrawn by the Planning Authority.

The investigation

The application in question, dating back more than a decade, was withdrawn and reactivated three times during its processing by the Planning Authority even though no reactivation request was ever submitted by the applicant.  Furthermore, there is no justification for the reactivation results from the proceedings.

The Development Planning Regulations 2016 clearly state that failure to fully answer a call for information following the enactment of these regulations, the planning application in question should be considered as tacitly withdrawn by the applicant.  The Planning Authority correctly followed the call procedure. However, the Planning Authority reactivated the application through a procedure that is not allowed by the regulations.  Neither did the Planning Authority inform the representees who were notified about the withdrawal that the mentioned application was reactivated.

The Commissioner found that any eventual confirmation of this application at the decision level can only lead to uncertainties and difficulties for the applicant through the anomaly of obtaining a decision on a tacitly withdrawn application.  Furthermore, any further processing might set a serious precedent for withdrawn applications since this would mean that withdrawn applications can then be reactivated against regulations at the whim of the Planning Authority.

Conclusions and Recommendations

The Commissioner concluded that any further processing of this application is irregular since the applicant tacitly withdrawn this application in line with regulations.  The Commissioner recommended that the Planning Authority shall immediately halt any further processing of this application, which process should have stopped following withdrawal.

Outcome

The planning application in question was withdrawn in line with the Commissioner’s recommendations.