'Losing the run of ourselves' on rezoning

Meath County Council is now facing the prospect having to dezone hundreds of acres of land following the collective rezoning mania that gripped the county during the boom years. Recent figures claim that Meath ranks as the worst offender when it comes to the amount of land rezoned, having an incredible 61 times the amount needed for housing purposes. The massive zoning deliquency that was allowed to happen over the past decade means that this county has enough zoned land for 124,173 housing units when just over 2,000 are needed. However, the madness was not just confined to commuter counties like Meath. Nationally, councils rezoned enough land to construct almost 1.1 million homes when, at most, just 300,000 will be needed between now and 2016. However, it is this county that stands out above all others with over 60 times what is required for houses, followed by Waterford with 40 times more than needed, Louth (38 times) and Monaghan (26 times). The role of councillors, in particular, is likely to come under the microscope as a result of the latest revelations, who permitted such unnecessary over-zoning of land which undoubtedly contributed to helping fuel the property bubble which has burst with such catastrophic consequences and left hundreds of ghost estates up and down the country. Excessive rezoning in Meath has been a feature of life in the county for years but it is the extent of it that is so surprising. A High Court judge previously criticised councillors in Meath for failing to consider planning guidelines in the mad scramble to satisfy landowners and developers, many of whom ended up becoming millionaires on the back of having land rezoned, thus allowing it to appreciate hugely in value. Councillors over the last several years rezoned enough land in Meath to cater for a population of 242,000 by 2011, considerably more than the 163,000 currently residing in the county. As far back as Mr Justice Quirke's ruling in a Judicial Review of the Meath Development Plan of 2001, it was stated in the High Court that the regional planning guidelines for the Greater Dublin Area were rarely, if ever, referred to when decisions on planning were being made in Meath and that the decisions made "appeared to have been influenced more by pressure and lobbying exerted by interested parties". In many instances, "local interests" appeared to have overcome the concept of "local needs". Now, new laws are expected to come before the Dail later this year that will force local authority members to pay heed to official planning guidelines and counties where over-zoning was permitted to occur will be compelled to either dezone land back to agricultural use or designate it for other uses. Planning Minister Ciaran Cuffe warned that the lessons of the ghost estates will have to be learned after "losing the run of ourselves" during the Celtic Tiger years. Locally, a new county councillor, Regina Doherty of Fine Gael, has made clear her intention to force a debate on the issue and to demand that the amount of land rezoned for housing purposes throughout Meath be slashed. She has called on colleagues to "face up to the fact that the county is over-zoned for housing". Cllr Doherty, who was elected to Meath County Council last summer, said there was "justified criticism" of councils throughout the country which zoned land "for favours done". She added that vast tracts of land should never have been rezoned from agricultural use in the first place. It is understood Meath County Council has disputed some of the figures on land rezoning published recently in a national newspaper. However, the newspaper said it had based its survey on statistics supplied by the Department of the Environment, and the Department has said it, in turn, was supplied with the figures by individual county councils. One county council - in Kerry - has already made moves to begin to dezone land ahead of the expected legislation. It is abundantly clear others should now begin to follow.