Council considering response to suggestion of ‘over-zoning’

Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council will wait until July 19th to say how it plans to respond to criticism that it is rezoning too much land for housing.

The criticism was made by the Office of the Planning Regulator in a submission on the current draft of the Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Development Plan 2022-2028.

The planning regulator, who is responsible for ensuring local authority plans conform to regional and national strategy, has asked Dun Laoghaire Rathdown management to scale back residential zoning in the draft plan, saying the targets allow almost 7,000 more housing units than needed.

The regulator specifically said the council’s proposal to zone for some 22,800 housing units - including part of the Cherrywood strategic development zone - was “significantly in excess of housing supply targets” calculated in line with guidelines based on local, regional and national plans.

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In a series of recommendations to councillors, the regulator said housing supply and population targets in the plan for would lead to “surplus lands zoned” for residential and other uses.

“As the office estimates the housing supply target for the county to be in the region of 15,000 for the plan period, the proposed land use zoning is based on an excess of 6,800 units, which would indicate that excessive lands are proposed to be zoned under the draft plan,” the regulator told the council.

On Monday night councillors at the July monthly council meeting sought clarity on the status of the regulator’s comments. Councillor Denis O’Callaghan (Lab) told members the office of the regulator was “relatively new” and he questioned how the local authority would “implement or address” the regulator’s advice.

‘Give us some direction’

He was supported by Councillor Barry Saul (FG) who asked that “the manager would give us some direction” on the weight the councillors - who vote on the draft plan’s adoption - should give to the regulator’s comments.

In response the council’s director of services Mary Henchy, said council staff were still considering the regulator’s comments.

She said “the team” was looking at other local authorities across the country where the regulator had made similar comments, to ascertain what were the responses made in those cases.

She said the process of considering submissions was ongoing and the council had received more than 1,260 submissions on the current review.

While the process may end in the council being issued with a binding direction, she told the meeting: “We are a few steps yet off getting a direction. ” She said “in this case it would be the Minister rather than the Officer of the Planning Regulator” who would issue such a direction.

Ms Henchy said on July 19th two documents would issue to the councillors, one of them a summary of submissions, and the second a summary of the chief executive’s comments on those submissions.

She said there was a specific order for the responses starting with those concerning the planning regulator and going on through statutory bodies including regional authorities and moving through submissions from members of the public.

She said the county management’s response to the planning regulator would be made known in those documents.

But she warned: “One thing we cannot do is ignore the Office of the Planning Regulator”.