Monaghan County Council resumes consideration of its county development plan today against a background where the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, has threatened to scrap it.
County manager Declan Nelson has been warned that because councillors have rezoned enough land to almost triple the county's population, the Minister may feel compelled to take action.
The letter has also warned that the councillors' actions would create serious flooding risks.
Last October the council amended the Monaghan draft development plan to adopt a large number of additional rezonings, against the advice of planners.
Mr Nelson warned the councillors there was a risk Mr Roche would not allow the plan to stand and the four-page letter from Mr Roche's department has indicated it is of a similar view.
A significant number of the amendments were "not in the interests of proper planning" and "failed to achieve an effective balance in reconciling local aims with national and regional policies," the letter said.
Enough land has been rezoned to potentially increase the population of Monaghan to 100,000. The population was 55,800 last year. The letter states that some villages that have "no services or facilities" could see their populations increase by up to 2,000.
The council has seven councillors each from Fine Gael and Sinn Féin, five from Fianna Fáil, and one Independent.
The Independent councillor, Vincent P Martin, who has voted in support of the manager's recommendations on the zoning issues, has said the Minister's letter averts a "planning disaster".
However the Fianna Fáil mayor of Monaghan, Pádraig McNally, has said he was disappointed the Minister has intervened before the plan was finished. The letter also stated that land at Ballybay that had been rezoned was "clearly prone to serious flooding".
