At a meeting last month, Louth county councillors took what one insider called “the nuclear option” in not only blocking a proposed housing development near Dundalk but voting to have the land dezoned altogether.
And it wasn’t just councillors from one party. The motion to get the 46-acre site at Haggardstown close to Dundalk Golf Club, on which Glenveagh Properties is proposing to build 502 homes, dezoned was proposed by Green Party councillor Marianne Butler and supported by the five Sinn Féin, three Fine Gael, three Fianna Fáil and three Independent councillors present.
This when the same parties at national level are promising to “build, build, build” in response to what voters rank as the State’s most pressing issue: housing.
Dundalk has also been identified as one of just four regional growth centres (separate from cities) in the National Planning Framework, so it needs homes and lots of them.
But as the old saying goes, all politics is local and there is a complex tug of war going on behind the scenes, one that highlights many of the issues aggravating our housing problem, not least the overly complex planning system itself.
Councillors and community groups insist that the site is not suitable for a dense housing development with distance to schools and services and “the likely mode of transport” highlighted as problematic.
While it was zoned as residential in previous local area plans, a scheme of this nature, they claim, would be out of kilter with “the sequential pattern of development”.
The site’s previous owners, however, managed to secure planning permission under the former strategic housing development (SHD) process, a system that allowed developers bypass the local authority stage of planning. The then government brought it in to fast-track housing developments of a certain size through the planning process, a move that triggered legal battles up and down the country.
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Glenveagh acquired the site in 2022 and sought a revised planning permission through the SHD’s successor process, the large-scale residential development system, which reinstalled the local authority as the primary planning authority.
The company sought the revised planning on the grounds that the original permission contained too many high-density apartments which posed viability issues for the company.
This application, which comprised 502 units including 210 three-bed terraced and semi-detached houses plus a creche, was rejected by Louth County Council earlier this year on several grounds.
The company appealed the decision to An Bord Pleanála which also rejected the plan, citing concerns regarding wastewater treatment. “The proposed development would be premature having regard to the existing deficiency in the capacity of sewerage facilities, which would set an undesirable precedent for other similar developments in the surrounding area and would, therefore, be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area,” the planning agency said.
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Glenveagh insists these concerns have now been addressed and that it has secured an Irish Water connection agreement for the first 200 homes on the site which it says could enable development to take place immediately.
This would appear to be consistent with the Louth County Council chief executive’s latest report, which states “that deficiencies in the network will be addressed by Uisce Éireann capital works programme”. As a result, the report contends the site should retain its residential zoning status as part of this local area plan.
However, while deliberating various public submissions on the plan, including one from an adjoining landowner, councillors voted to dezone the site – or at least backed a motion to rezone the site as “strategic reserve” land – putting them at odds with the council executive. It is usually the other way around with councillors in favour of zoning and council executives against it on the grounds it might be contrary to proper planning.
“The reason for this amendment was that the residential zoning on these lands does not follow a sequential pattern of development and there are infrastructure deficiencies in the area,” said the council voting record.
“Councillors across the political divide voted to dezone this land because it lacked the necessary water infrastructure,” Ms Butler said.
Despite the vote, the issue is still live as the formulation of the local area plan is ongoing and not expected to be finalised until next year. Glenveagh says it is pressing ahead with a revised planning application, effectively restarting the entire process.
A spokesman said the company noted the vote to dezone the land and expressed disappointment at the decision particularly in the context of a “national housing crisis”.
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“The view of the company is that the continued zoning of the land for residential development is consistent with the proper planning and sustainable development of the area,” he said.
The case perhaps illustrates two things: how the housing narrative is more nuanced at ground level but also the complex hoops companies must go through to build.
According to industry sources, the average housing activation rate on zoned land is approximately 17 per cent, a rate that in theory means the State needs to zone for up to 250,000 units a year to build 50,000 a year, the State’s housing target.
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