Council to commence process of varying development plan amid housing crunch

“The sooner we review the Offaly County Development Plan the better,” declared Cllr Declan Harvey during a wide-ranging debate on the housing growth requirements for the county at the November meeting of Offaly County Council last week.

Councillors were given a brief synopsis of a report prepared by chief executive Anna Marie Delaney on foot of new housing targets for local authorities which were announced by the Department of Housing in July.

The revised National Planning Framework 'housing growth requirement guidelines' set a target of 50,000 new homes per annum, more than double previous targets, and requires local authorities to review their plans and policies to ensure they have sufficient lands zoned for housing development.

The Offaly council chief executive recommended to members that they begin the variation process on the county development plan in each municipal district, and said she agreed that it was “prudent to proceed” with this.

She added that the Executive would “guide and be guided” by the members and pledged that “significant guidance” would be provided.

Cllr Noel Cribbin said members had gone through all the local area plans “for months and months” and it was “a complete waste of time” as most of the recommendations had been turned down “by some lad in Dublin looking at a computer screen”.

The meeting had earlier heard from Director of Services, Andrew Murray, that Tullamore was “ahead of target” with house building and that there was “a lot of land zoned” which is still available.

This prompted councillors from more rural parts of the county to question what was happening in their own areas. Cllr Eddie Fitzpatrick noted that big towns like Tullamore and Portlaoise in Laois were “growing hugely” and said rural towns and villages “need to move ahead too.”

“There is huge demand for housing in Tullamore,” said Cllr Sean O'Brien, “and a number of builders are ready to go as soon as they get the green light.”

He added that progress has to be made on providing more housing across the county “as soon as possible.”

Cllr Peter Ormond felt that councillors had been “very hamstrung” when the last county development plan was being drawn up and he was critical of the role played by the Office of the Planning Regulator.

He pointed out that one house was built on zoned land in Shinrone and none in Moneygall.

“We were told that this process had to be done at the county development plan stage and now we have to go through the whole process again,” he said, “we have to zone lands and give people a choice.”

Cllr Liam Quinn said he understood the town centre first policy, but he said there was “a need to expand it,” while the council cathaoirleach, Cllr John Leahy, called for special meetings to be convened in each of the three municipal districts as there was a section of the population in Offaly who “still want to live in rural areas” and they should be catered for.