Mayo County Council approve opening up 195 hectares of land for housing development

Mayo councillors have agreed to recommendations from Mayo County Council which will open up approximately 195 hectares of land for housing development.

The recommendation by Mayo County Council to vary the County Development Plan to incorporate the National Planning Framework housing growth requirements was unanimously passed at the monthly meeting of Mayo County Council.

The variation to the County Development Plan will now result in the release of approximately 195 hectares of Strategic Residential Reserve lands with the revised plan now targeting a growth of 1,100 additional households. 

In proposing the recommendation, Westport-based Fine Gael councillor, Peter Flynn commented that while the release of the Strategic Residential Reserve lands will not solve the housing crisis, it will be a 'welcome step forward'.

“There are huge demands for additional housing within our country and this is a welcome step forward. It is not the perfect solution but at least it is a quick solution and we can get another 470 acres of land into new residential zoning.

“Hopefully it will allow developers to come forward and to start moving at speed in relation to significant estates in our county particularly for working people who are struggling to get houses,” he said.

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The variation of the plan came about after the Minister of Housing, James Browne wrote to councils in June asking them to identify land that can be zoned for housing.

Catherine McConnell, Director of Services with responsibility for planning explained that Strategic Residential Reserve lands which were part of the Local Area Plans for Westport, Ballina and Castlebar are all serviced and ready for development. 

Many of the councillors bemoaned that they had zoned this land for residential housing when the Local Area Plans and the County Development Plan was being drawn up but the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) had rejected their proposals at the time.

Cllr Damien Ryan told the meeting that the Minister was now asking the councillors to do what they had wished to do and felt the OPR and the National Planning Framework were not fit for purpose.

“We are being asked to do something that we wanted to do ourselves three or four years ago in the making of the development. That National Planning Framework needs to be torn up into a thousand pieces. It has identified 48 growth centres in this country where money for infrastructure will be ringfenced from now until 2030 and everywhere else is removed from that.

“Both the OPR and NPF are not fit for purpose and that document needs to be decimated and torn into a thousand pieces," the Fianna Fáil councillor said.

He was supported by his party colleague, Cllr Al McDonnell, who described the OPR as incompetent.

While the recommendations were passed many councillors express reservations that it will lead to an increase in building. Ballinrobe-based Fine Gael councillor Michael Burke said he did not believe it will unless finance is provided to small developers.

Ms McConnell told the meeting that the council is committed to review of the County Development Plan next year where concerns raised by councillors will be addressed. She said the process to vary the plan will go to the submission stage and expects the process to open up the land for development will to be competed by the end of the year.