Minister to write to councils on failure to review rezoning

MINISTER OF State for Housing and Planning Jan O’Sullivan is to write to eight city and county councils who have failed to comply with legislation to reform inappropriate zoning.

She said the amount of land zoned for housing needed to be reduced to a little more than 11,000 hectares, having reached more than 42,000 hectares three years ago.

Launching a report aimed at tackling what she called “excessive and unco-ordinated” zoning, Ms O’Sullivan said that during the so-called boom years, those involved in the planning system became “addicted to zoning”.

She said the figure of 42,058 hectares of land rezoned for housing recorded by 2009 was 4.5 times what was actually needed. “This is evidence of the Celtic Tiger era gone mad,” she said.

Ms O’Sullivan said more than 5,000 hectares had been dezoned, and she promised that further inappropriate or unnecessary zoning would be tackled as the year went on through reviews of local area plans.

She named the eight local authorities that had not yet completed the necessary review of zoning decisions, adding that she would be writing to them this week.

Letters were ready to go to county councils in Donegal, Carlow, Longford, Westmeath, Roscommon and Meath, along with city councils in Waterford and Limerick. She said they had all begun their reviews and would complete them by this year.

Referring to calls to open inquiries into planning irregularities in local authorities, Ms O’Sullivan said an internal review of investigations she described as having been “proposed” by former minister for the environment John Gormley of the Green Party was ongoing.

She would decide whether further independent investigations were required once the final report was completed at the end of the month or beginning of May.

“If we do, I will have those carried out and we will appoint independent investigators.”

Ms O’Sullivan insisted Mr Gormley had not established the investigations, which he disputes. “We have been very clear on what has happened. They were not established by Mr Gormley. He set up a panel of consultants who were available. He didn’t establish any funding.”

Fianna Fáil’s environment spokesman Niall Collins has called on the Government to carry out the independent inquiries immediately. “The decision to suppress the independent planning inquiries initiated by the last government was a major mistake,” Mr Collins said, “and will do nothing to restore public faith in the planning system.”

Meanwhile, a new website to allow the public greater access to the planning system was also launched. Myplan. ie will provide information on development plans across the State, along with details of projected population, schools and flood plains.

Ms O’Sullivan said the website would help to ensure the planning system was for the benefit of the public and was not “developer-led”.