Housing minister accused of ignoring Ballina councillors over zoning

COUNCILLORS from the Ballina area have sought a meeting with the Minister for Housing after he was accused of ignoring their proposals to zone more land for housing.

Representatives from the Ballina Municipal District Council reacted angrily when Minister for Housing, James Browne, refused to make material alterations to their local area plan which would have zoned more land for housing.

The Office of the Planning Regulator(OPR) made ten submissions to the draft plan opposing the zoning of ‘peripheral’ sites as ‘new residential’. The OPR cited the potential difficulty with providing services like water among their observations.

Councillors from the area had sought to zone sites at Garrankeel (2), Gorteen, Laghtadwannagh, Station Road, Abbeyquarter and Laghtadwannagh under the new local area plan.

Cllr Jarlath Munnelly said it was ‘disgraceful’ that the minister had disregarded local representatives’ suggested material alterations to the plan.

“Ballina is way behind in terms of its existing [housing] targets because lots of land, zoned land, that’s not being built on and won’t be built on,” the Fine Gael representative told the monthly meeting of Ballina Municipal District.

Cllr Michael Loftus, Cathaoirleach of the municipal district, echoed Cllr Munnelly’s concerns and suggested that local councillors request a meeting housing minister be requested at the next monthly meeting of Mayo County Council.

Local representatives have long complained about the lack of new housing in the area. The most recent housing estate in the town, the 50-unit social housing development Rehins Fort, opened last year.

Mayo County Council is currently working on six different housing projects comprising over 100 units in the Ballina Municipal District area.

Catherine McConnell, Mayo County Council’s Director of Services for Ballina, said that Ballina’s local area plan was treated ‘no differently’ to plans in the Westport and Castlebar Municipal District, which were also amended on foot of ministerial orders.

Ms McConnell, who is the local authority’s Director of Services for Planning, said it was ‘a misconception’ that there was a lack of zoned land in the area.

She insisted that there was ‘plenty of land’ in the area and that all land zoned as ‘residential’ and ‘strategic reserve’ was serviced.

“It’s not just the amount of zoned land that’s available, there is substantial amounts of strategic reserves in all of those towns that we can activate planning permissions if they can be serviced and developed,” she said.

However, this was rejected by Cllr Jarlath Munnelly, who insisted that councillors had not proposed zoning any land for housing which was not serviced.

“We were acting in very good faith here, the people elected last June, and the minister has absolutely ignored what we did,” he said.