Wicklow's rezoning plan for green-belt comes under fire

Wicklow County Council's plans for large-scale rezoning of green-belt land in Newtownmountkennedy (Newtown) and Kilcoole is being questioned by the Department of the Environment.

The plans are based on the council's interpretation of the Strategic Planning Guidelines (SPGs), which differs in key respects to the meaning of the guidelines as understood by the council's consultant planners, the Department and the technical director of the SPG unit.

The council has maintained that its plans for large-scale rezoning of land in Newtownmountkennedy and Kilcoole are in accordance with the planning guidelines.

In its preamble to the draft development plans for Newtown the council quotes from what it describes as the "The Review and Update April 2000 technical report on the SPG", to suggest it "perhaps follows" that large-scale rezoning is not unreasonable. .

However, the technical director of the guidelines unit, Ms Mary Darley, said the "working report" was a report submitted to the SPG committee for consideration but formed no part of its conclusions. Ms Darly said the SPG review and update last April did not use the words Newtown or Kilcoole at all. The effect of using the words as contained in the Newtown and Kilcoole preambles would, she said, reverse the thrust of the Strategic Planning Guildelines.

Mr Kieran O'Malley, a planning consultant hired by Wicklow County Council, pointed out in his draft report to the council that the guidelines appeared to justify only zoning for local need at Newtown. Mr Michael Grace a consultant with planners Brady Shipman Martin, the firm which advised on the drawing up of the SPGs, said he thought it would be "very difficult" to justify Wicklow County Council's plans in the light of the SPGs.

It has also emerged that since the plans were first formulated a letter of objection was submitted by the Dublin Transportation Office, pointing out that excessive housing development on the N11 would impair the strategic importance of the route to Rosslare, by blocking the corridor with commuter traffic.

In recent weeks the Department of the Environment has joined the planners and the DTO in questioning the rezoning plans.

In a letter to the council the Department said such growth rates in the timescale envisaged, "would seem to be a very significant divergence" from the guidelines.

It reminded the council that in April 1999 the Minister, Mr Dempsey, had formally requested that each local authority in the Greater Dublin Area "should ensure that its development plan is in line with the strategy set out in the guidelines".

Requesting an early report from the county secretary, the letter said that if the apparent conflict with the guidelines could not be resolved, "it is the Department's strong view that the proposed town plans . . . should not be adopted".