Draft plan for Dun Laoghaire invalid, says manager

The Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Manager, Mr Derek Brady, has told councillors that their draft development plan may be invalid because it does not rezone enough land for the council's housing strategy.

At the end of a marathon meeting at 3 a.m. yesterday, councillors voted in favour of their new draft development plan - despite warnings from the manager that they needed to rezone at least another 40 hectares to meet their commitments to provide new homes.

The manager had already laid down a "health warning" about the development plan at the start of the process when he warned that 71 hectares would be required altogether.

In a report prepared for councillors, the manager indicated where he thought the rezonings should take place. These included the Dún Laoghaire Golf Club site which was to be rezoned for housing, a public park, employment and a neighbourhood centre.

It also included the former Irish Glass Bottle company sports grounds on a 10-acre site near UCD in Clonskeagh/Goatstown, which was sold by employees of the company earlier this year. Property developers have proposed 1,000 student units for the site.

Councillors also struck out a 10-acre site around the Victorian Clonlara House in Shankill, among others, leaving the plan well short of meeting its target as set by the manager.

Mr Brady said he would now write to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, informing him that the councillors had made a defective plan. Mr Brady advised revisiting lands previously voted on in order to address the shortfall.

Quoting his law agent, Mr Brady said that it was made quite clear to him that work in progress could be revisited in order to seek to undo an illegal plan in order to achieve a final resolution.

However, Ms Kealin Ireland of the Green Party also quoted legal advice that to revisit motions already voted on was illegal, and contrary to Planning and Development Act 2000.

Ms Bernie Lowe (FF) said her legal advice was that if provision was not made for people on the housing list, councillors could be made liable for that defect.

Mr Aidan Culhane (Lab) said there were many ways to address the shortfall. The housing need figures were too high, he said, arguing that they were are based only on projections. Density figures could also be looked at and land rezoning was not the only answer to the problem, he said.

A motion by the Labour Party to introduce adjusted housing figures, based on reduced Central Statistic Office and Strategic Planning Guideline figures, was ruled out of order by the cathaoirleach, Mr Trevor Matthews (FF).

After further warnings from the manager councillors went ahead and approved their draft by nine votes to six.

The manager informed the chamber that he would be writing to Mr Martin Cullen and letting him know that the councillors had failed to adopt a proper draft development plan.