Mayo councillors reject OPR recommendations not to zone land for housing

WESTPORT councillors have rejected the recommendations of both the Planning Regulator and the Chief Executive of Mayo County Council not to rezone extra land for housing in their town’s area plan.

At a special meeting of the Westport/Belmullet Municipal District, the four Westport-based councillors agreed to reject the recommendations of the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) not to adopt changes the councillors made to the draft Westport Local Area Plan.

In January, councillors agreed to make a number of amendments to the draft Westport Local Area Plan 2024-2030 in order to zone extra land for residential use.

However, last month the OPR stated that a number of the material alterations introduced by the elected members are contrary to regional policies objectives of the Development Plan and draft Local Area Plan. The Chief Executive of Mayo County Council, Kevin Kelly, also proposed that the councillors adopt the recommendations of the OPR.

HOUSING NEEDS

THE special meeting of the municipal district was called to consider the recommendations of both the OPR and Mr Kelly, but all the councillors stated they were rejecting them.

The councillors claimed the material alterations they made were considered and responsible and were done to ensure that enough land is zoned to meet the housing needs into the future.

Fine Gael councillor Peter Flynn asked John McMyler, the senior planner with Mayo County Council, to explain how the OPW and the Chief Executive reached their conclusions.

John McMyler confirmed there were no meetings between the OPR and Mayo County Council but the council has to have regard to the OPR recommendations and has no choice but to ‘fall in line’.

“The OPR has made a call on the quantum of land being zoned, and while you might not agree with it, that is the bottom line. We [council executives] are caught by that. I am not saying you have to agree with it, but we as an executive have to agree with it,” he explained.

Fine Gael councillor blamed 'faceless bureaucrats in Dublin' for dictating housing need in Westport

Fine Gael councillor Peter Flynn said this showed that councillors can make recommendations but the final say on planning in Westport will be dictated to by ‘faceless bureaucrats in Dublin’.

“If you want an example of how broken the local government system is, you have the OPR based in Dublin making recommendations to us in Westport without making contact with you or us as councillors. Faceless people in offices in Dublin are now determining how the local area develops over the next seven years. How mad is that? We have a Chief Executive who agrees with the recommendations because he is told to. It is so ludicrous.

“We are in effect wasting our time here… We will go through the process today, but it tells you everything about how local government has gone. We have a faceless bureaucrat telling us how to do our job, and it is shameless,” he said.

Councillors stated that the lack of housing was a major issue on the doorsteps during the local election campaign. The meeting heard that houses in a new development were costing up to €700,000 and young people could not afford houses in the town.

Independent councillor Christy Hyland, who was chairing the meeting, said he felt that the decisions made by the OPR was contributing to the housing crisis.

“We are losing all our young people, and I feel the planning system is a factor in the housing crisis. The land is too dear [to develop] and we have land on the edge of town which might help if it was zoned for housing. The young couples can’t get a home in this town at a price where they will comfortably pay a mortgage,” he said.

Fellow Independent councillor John O’Malley said if they follow the recommendations of the OPR there will be no young families around Westport because they will have moved away and ‘they won’t come back again’.

‘URBAN SPRAWL’

THE OPR made recommendations not to rezone land along the West Road, Ardmore / Carrownalurgan and along the Lodge Road at Monamore from agricultural to residential. In relation to the site along the West Road, the OPR stated it was too far from the urban centre and was a flood risk.

Cllr Brendan Mulroy stated that the developer who is planning to build on the site compiled a flood risk assessment as part of his planning application. He said it showed it was not a flood risk and this should not be used as a reason for not rezoning it for housing.

The councillors had also proposed to extend the plan boundary from Ardmore to Belclare Junction and zone all lands within the boundary extension for agriculture. This was also rejected by the OPR who stated that extending the boundary would ‘facilitate a pattern of urban sprawl’.

Mr McMyler told the meeting he agreed with the OPR in this regard, as he felt Belclare Junction is too far from the town not to be car dependent.

The meeting heard that the council planners have until the end of the week to prepare a report for the OPR outlining the councillors’ reasons for rejecting the recommendations.

Mr McMyler said that the plan with the material alterations will come into effect in six weeks, but he warned the councillors to expect the Minister for Planning to make a ministerial direction. However, he pointed out that if this occurs, the recommendations from the Minister would go on public display, which would mean that more submissions could be made.

“Our experience so far is that [ministerial direction] does tend to go back to the OPR recommendations, but at that stage you can make a strong report directly to [the minister],” he said.