Guidelines aimed at controlling development of greater Dublin

STRATEGIC planning guidelines aimed at controlling the strong pressures for development in the greater Dublin area until 2010 are to be drawn up during the next 12 months.

The Minister for the Environment is requesting the city and county managers in Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow, and the secretaries of the Dublin and mideast regional authorities to initiate this process.

Mr Howlin is concerned the rapid growth of the capital will lead to another spate of haphazard land rezoning by individual local authorities unless an overall planning framework is put in place.

The ESRI recently said more land needed to be rezoned for residential development in the Dublin area, arguing that the current shortage of zoned and serviced land was a factor in pushing up house prices.

In the absence of guidelines, intense pressure from landowners and speculative developers is likely to result in land being rezoned indiscriminately, without regard for planning principles.

The precise scope of the guidelines is to be set out in a brief to consultants who will carry out a study under the direction of a steering committee on which the Department of the Environment is to be represented.

The consultants, who have yet to be appointed, will have to take into account the principles of sustainable development as outlined in the Government's new strategy, as well as infrastructure and environment capacity.

They will be asked to provide an "indicative" distribution of where the additional population of the region could be housed, as well as examining where new commercial and industrial development could be located.

After agreement is reached on the guidelines, the Minister intends to introduce legislation which would require the local authorities to have regard to the relevant provisions in reviewing their own development plans.

The need for strategic land use planning guidelines to regulate Dublin's development was recognised by the Government in 1995 when it accepted the final report of the Dublin Transportation Initiative.

Last year, the Dublin Transportation Office said an overall land use and transportation plan should be put in place before individual local authority development plans are revised a process already under way.

Without referring to the two year delay, Mr Howlin said he was "glad that we are now in a position to move ahead with the preparation of guidelines which will provide a framework for the physical development of the region".

He said the success of this exercise would require the full involvement of councillors and officials. They would be represented, respectively, on a Local and Regional Authority Committee and on the proposed steering committee.