Choosing nuns' land for restrictive rezoning 'coincidental', says council

DUBLIN CITY Council has denied that its planning authority had singled out the lands of religious orders for restrictive zoning.

In the Commercial Court yesterday, the lawyers representing the local authority said the fact that religious orders owned 76 per cent of all privately owned lands in the Dublin area that have been made subject to more restricted zoning in the city’s new development plan is “coincidental”.

James Connolly SC, for the council, said it did not amount to “some sort of land grab”.

He rejected claims by the Sisters of Charity that the decision to subject their lands to so-called Z15 zoning reflected a policy with an improper motive of targeting lands owned by religious orders.

The council had looked at the use of lands, not their ownership, and the sisters’ claim that the council regarded religious lands as a resource for the community reflected “a misunderstanding” as all land in Dublin city was regarded as a finite resource for the benefit of the community at large, not just individual owners.

The community in general, including the sisters, benefited from green spaces being preserved and buildings protected and it was wrong to characterise the council’s approach as “some sort of land grab”, he argued.

The sisters have alleged the council has failed to give any rational reason why the Z15 “community and institutional resource lands” [education, recreation, community, green infrastructure and health] – was imposed on 108 acres of lands owned by them and not on certain other lands.

They claim a Z15 designation means future uses such as housing development are not open to them with adverse implications for their property rights and ability to sell off land to fund their activities.

Outlining his opposing arguments to Mr Justice Frank Clarke yesterday, Mr Connolly said the sisters had “cherry-picked” aspects of the city’s development plan and used certain comments by some councillors to support their claims, but this was a flawed approach.

The development plan must be considered holistically as “a package of policies” and in a context where historically religious orders had had a “laudable and substantial” involvement in running schools and hospitals on their lands, he said.

While it was the case that religious orders owned 76 per cent of all privately owned lands made subject to the disputed Z15 zoning, their lands accounted for 51 per cent of all the publicly and privately owned lands zoned Z15.

Of 3,129 documents produced by the council for the nuns’ case, not a single document supported their claim that lands owned by religious were being targeted, he added.

The case continues on Tuesday.