Challenge to dezoning of developer’s €1 million land is dismissed

The High Court has dismissed a challenge to a decision of Meath County Councillors to dezone from residential to community infrastructure a small area of land which was bought by a developer for €1 million.

In September 2021 the councillors voted to adopt the new Meath County Development Plan for 2021 to 2027, which included the change to a 0.84-hectare piece of land between the existing Bourne View and Churchfields housing estates in Ashbourne.

Developers Killegland Estates Ltd had bought the land the previous May for just over €1 million, with the residential zoning in place. It submitted a planning application seeking to build 31 homes on the land and the council granted permission in October.

However, following submissions from the public as part of the consideration of the draft development plan, a number of councillors proposed dezoning it for open space purposes, saying, among other things, it was critical to the development of a park in the area. The open space purpose was later changed to community infrastructure.

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The proposal was opposed by the council’s chief executive.

Separately, a number of councillors proposed that the residential zoning be moved to an area of land at the west end of the Churchfields estate, adjacent to the M2 motorway. The Office of the Planning Regulator and Transport Infrastructure Ireland opposed the new zoning for the land next to the motorway and the council chief executive recommended it be omitted from the plan.

On September 20th, 2021, councillors voted 19 to 15 to reject the chief executive’s recommendation and on September 22nd the new county development plan was adopted.

Killegland Estates then brought High Court judicial review proceedings against the council seeking to quash the decision.

In a judgment just published, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys dismissed Killegland’s challenge.

He said that, unfortunately for Killegland, there wasn’t any basis to contend that the council’s decision exceeded the bounds of rationality.

On the contrary, he agreed with the council’s submission that Killegland was “impermissibly attempting to engage in a review of the merits of the decision”.

No aspect of the decision has been shown to be something that was not open to a reasonable decision-maker, the judge said.

In a separate judgment also relating to the Co Meath development plan, Mr Justice Humphreys dismissed a challenge by McGarrell Reilly Homes Ltd and Alcove Ireland Eight Ltd over zoning changes of four parcels of development land in Kilcock and Stamullen.

The judge said, among other things, there was no failure on the part of the council to comply with its obligations under the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) Directive, including in relation to the requirement for public participation.

He said even if, counterfactually, the council’s decision was flawed, there would be a particular problem related to granting an order to quash the zoning charges.

That was because McGarrell/Alcove had only sought to quash the decision in relation to their own lands.

This left unchallenged the core strategy which ensures compliance with national and regional policy by providing an allocation of residential provision and a hierarchy for distributing that throughout the county, the judge said.