A Variation to the County Development Plan has been proposed by the Council Executive and is out for public consultation until 29th January.

It is in response to a direction from Central Government to increase the housing targets for the County. It is proposing to bring forward the zoning of land at Dunsink which I strongly support. However, it also includes a number of scatterred rezoning proposals eating into the green belts around towns in Fingal, which have been established planning policies for decades.

The total additional zoning proposed would be for 5000 housing units, based on a Settlement Capacity Analysis which appears to have omitted some important sites zoned for housing including sites which have existing planning permissions. This is because the Settlement Capacity Analysis is based on the Residential Zoned Land Tax and land with existing permitted uses is excluded from the tax even if it has residential planning permissions.

I have written to the Council officials about the calculations, asking for some more details.

Text of email sent to Council Executive on 9th January.

Thanks for the briefing and for sending the presentation. I have some questions about the calculations.

Unserviced land
We’ve been told that there are 173ha of land zoned for residential development which fall outside the scope of the Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT), and that for much of the land this is due to it not being adequately serviced for development. I understand that there isn’t a list of all of these pieces of land as some were excluded at early stages in the RZLT process. However, it would be straightforward to compile data on any sites excluded from the RZLT following an appeal. So I would be grateful for 

1.  a list of all pieces of land excluded from the RZLT following an appeal, with the area of the land and the reason for the exclusion in each case. 

I expect that as a body we are familiar enough with the zoned area to identity any large areas of zoned land which aren’t serviced. Could we please get the following?

2. a list of all areas of residential or mixed use zoning with the capacity to deliver over 10 housing units, which aren’t serviced, and to specify what service(s) are lacking in each case.

Land with planning permission which hasn’t been included in the Settlement Capacity Audit because it’s exempt from the RZLT

Some residential or mixed use zoned land is not liable for RZLT due to having an existing permitted use. By relying on the RZLT maps for the Settlement Capacity Audit, we have missed these areas with current planning permissions for residential development. This includes two planning permissions for residential developments on the mixed use zoning at Blanchardstown Town Centre which amount to 1319 housing units. There may be others. Could we please get a list of all such permissions, i.e.:

3. a list of all pieces of land with live planning permissions for more than 3 housing units where the land in question is not within the scope of the Residential Zoned Land Tax, with the date of grant, the area of the land, the number of housing units and whether or not the permission has been commenced.

Conscious that the public consultation will end soon, I would be grateful if the above information could be supplied as soon as possible.
Thank you,
David