A MORATORIUM on development in a section of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown could cost the county up to €200 million in potential levies and redirect thousands of jobs from the area, a new report has claimed.
The report, Helping Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Reach Its Potential, suggests the county is the only one in Ireland with net outward migration and where capital spending on projects has halved in the past five years.
It follows Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown Council telling landowners earlier this year that it would not grant planning permission for any major developments in Sandyford in the foreseeable future.
The decision came after a council study identified serious drainage and infrastructural problems in the area.
The report also reveals there is a potential deficit of new housing of nearly 10,000 units against the regional planning guidelines issued for 2010.
It was commissioned by the Sandyford Stakeholders’ Forum – a group of local businesses, residents and community associations – and conducted by Goodbody economic consultants.
“Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown is facing a real crisis unless it acts swiftly to address planning in the county,” said John Finnegan of Goodbody.
“Solutions to the problems of income, jobs and housing appear to be ready within the Sandyford area that was originally planned to deliver an economic engine to the county. . . They need to be implemented quickly. . . as other council areas appear to be catching up to the kind of compact urban quarter with good transport and work/life infrastructure that Sandyford was originally conceived as,” he said.
Garry Colligan of the Sandyford Stakeholders’ Forum said the group had recently had some “positive meetings” with council officials. “We have been assured by the County Manager Owen Keegan that the issues relating to water and drainage infrastructure will not be a block to progress.”
