Cllr seeking support to reinstate dezoned residential land to tackle housing crisis

Much more land needed to be zoned for residential purposes to meet the need of a “booming population” an independent councillor said this week.

Brian Fitzgerald is to table a notice of motion at the November meeting of Meath County Council stating that “due to the ever-increasing housing crisis, compounded by the huge increase in population as outlined in the preliminary census report, this meeting calls for all residential lands (regarded as post-2019 lands), that were dezoned, or their period extended in the current county development plan, be reinstated by means of a variation, subject to approval by Minister Darragh O’Brien who is continuously stating that no such lands should be dezoned”.

The councillor said that he is looking for the support of all other 39 councillors on the council in order to get the issue onto the Minister’s desk and for action to be taken.

The Minister himself said on 4th October last that more land needed to be zoned for residential purposes . He said the Government was reviewing the National Planning Framework to assess how much zoned residential land was needed across the county.

He said he had instructed all local authorities that any land zoned as residential should not be dezoned given the country is in the midst of a housing crisis.

During the consideration of the new Co Meath development plan, projections of housing need were based on the results of the 2016 census. Some councillors on Meath County Council had argued that this was inadequate because of the expected growth in the population. The preliminary results from the 2022 census revealed that Meath’s population jumped by 25,000 (12.9%) since 2016.

Cllr Fitzgerald (pictured above), said he had been reading reports, speeches, news items over the last few months to the effect that the National Planning Framework had “got it wrong and that it needs to be rectified”.

He said it was not his intention to prescribe for the whole country but he felt that in his own county Meath “something is drastically wrong” and that it would be a crime not to do anything about it.

“What I’m suggesting is not a slight on Meath County Council officials, the planners or the executive as they were dealt a particular hand by the National Planning Framework and directed by the Office of the Planning Regulator. They were left in no other position than to do what they did and the councillors, at the end of it, naturally supported it”.

“In hindsight, we all have to look back at it and see what a lot of us had been saying, that the census figures (2016) would show a different picture to the one the National Planning Framework was showing. From that point of view something has to be done to adjust it because of the ever-growing housing list. There are serious problems arising that are going to be with us for a long number of years unless something is done now. This county has not escaped that situation. We have a lot of young couples, young families who want to get a house at a price they can pay”.

Cllr Fitzgerald that by putting back the land into the system that had been dezoned, more opportunities for housing would arise.

It would help smaller builders to be able to start building in those areas at a cheaper price in those areas than in the bigger towns.

“This would give the county council the opportunity to acquire land. They could not do what they used do – go out and buy agricultural land and then zone it themselves. They have to buy zoned land”.

It was obvious, he said, that the planning regulator had not taken into account “the huge growth in population in the county” and he had not taken into account the huge growth in immigration into the country. “Their attention was drawn to this but they totally ignored it,” he said.