Green Party not impressed with Fingal plans

Darren J. Prior

A public consultation is running on the Fingal County Council Online Consultation Portal up until January 29 asking residents their views on whether new tracts of greenbelt land across the council area should be redesignated as land for housing.

If developed the land could deliver an extra 2,500 new homes possibly by 2029.

Despite the huge demand for more housing across Fingal the hopes of Fingal County Council management were met with a mixed response from councillors at the 12th January monthly council meeting in Swords.

Speaking to Northside People Cllr. David Healy (Green Party, Howth-Malahide) (pictured above) expressed his annoyance with the plans, while acknowledging that the initial idea for the extra rezoned land was requested by Government of all councils in the State.

Cllr. Healy stated:

“We have an increasing number of large scale residential permissions that are not being acted upon.

“For some sites, the land owners have actually admitted that they are deliberately not planning to develop in the short-term, that they’re holding off.

“We have a very large number of planning permissions nationwide and in Fingal that have not been acted on.

“The Residential Zoned Land Tax is supposed to help with that but it doesn’t seem to be having the impact just yet.

“And unfortunately some significant sites with planning permission aren’t subject to the tax at all.

“We need to do more to drive delivery of the houses which already have planning permission and servicing.

“Instead of driving development where already zoned, serviced and permitted, we’re seeing proposals to rezone land in the greenbelts established decades ago to maintain distinct towns such as Swords, Malahide, Portmarnock, with agriculture or parks separating them.

“I think these rezoning proposals, many of which were rejected on planners’ advice at the last development plan, are mistaken.

“We need to drive development on the land we have already zoned.

“That includes taking action to redevelop existing low-density industrial lands, such as at Howth Junction, into mixed use centres for both housing and employment”, Cllr. Healy added.