Castlebar land rezoning plans quashed

Castlebar land rezoning plans quashed


Edwin McGreal

Ambitions to rezone rural areas on the outskirts of Castlebar to allow greater residential development have been quashed.
Fine Gael’s Cllr Cyril Burke had asked the council to explore rezoning lands in areas fully serviced by water and sewerage schemes to ‘residential’. Cllr Burke said such a move could ‘kick-start’ the local construction sector.
Cllr Burke said outlying areas of Castlebar such as Breaffy and Snugboro are fully serviced by water and sewerage facilities and the rezoning of lands in these areas from ‘rural character’ to ‘residential’ could reap benefits for the local economy.
However Mayo County Council’s Senior Planner Iain Douglas said such a move was not sustainable with regional planning guidelines and that the Castlebar area had an ample supply of land for residential development in the current Castlebar and Environs Development Plan.
“If we rezone lands we will have to dezone already zoned lands. We argued against the dezoning of lands previously with the Department (of the Environment and Local Government) as people had invested in lands in zoned areas. The Department reluctantly agreed,” stated Mr Douglas.
He said there are three phases of lands which have to be developed before the council can realistically consider going out to areas suggested by Cllr Burke.
Phase 1 he explained is nearly complete in terms of lands that owners will allow residential development on so he asked the council to consider releasing Phase 2 lands. Phase 3 lands would not need to be released, he argued, until 20 years time.

‘Three times the amount’
Mr Douglas said Castlebar currently has three times the amount of housing land that it needs up to 2020.
Cllr Blackie Gavin said a number of councillors were ‘approached’ regarding the development plan and the zoning of lands fully serviced by water and sewerage schemes.
Cllr Burke said government policy ‘is to encourage development’ and asked ‘why are we not doing it’? Cllr Al McDonnell (FF) said there were people with lands in Phases 1, 2 and 3 who do not want their lands developed.
Cllr Burke suggested that all serviced lands should be ‘opened up’ and ‘let the planners decide’ what lands will be developed. He argued that there are ‘huge tracts’ of Phase 2 lands which will not be developed ‘for all sorts of reasons’.
Iain Douglas repeated that there are currently three times the amount of land needed zoned for residential and if other lands were to be rezoned, what lands were to be dezoned? He also said a place like Snugboro was already ‘congested’.
“The lands you are talking about is rural - low density. Snugboro is already congested. We don’t have the infrastructure there. Putting more houses in there makes no sense … You will have what is called a doughnut effect on the outside of the town. It is a poor form of planning,” he said.
Lands in areas of ‘rural character’ can only currently be considered for planning permission for a house if the applicant has a family connection with the site.
Mr Douglas said as a way of determining how much of the current phased lands were going to be released for development, people owning zoned lands would have to pay a levy if the land is not built on.
He proposed the ‘opening up’ of Phase 2 lands which was passed by councillors.