‘Developers are dictating to council’ on zoned lands in East Meath - Judge

A HIGH COURT judge has said that Meath Co Council has allowed developers instead of itself to dictate which of the zoned development lands in the Southern environs of Drogheda will be allowed absorb the provided allocation for housing in that area.

Judge Richard Humphreys was delivering his judgement in a challenge to the Meath County Development Plan by the community organisation Protect East Meath.

The judge indicated before Christmas that he intended to quash part of the new development plan relating to the South Drogheda lands.

The challenge to the plans was made by Protect East Meath, a non-profit organisation with a stated mission of ensuring that future developments in East Meath only takes place with strong environmental protections. Parties notified of the court challenge included Trailford Ltd, Shannon Homes (Dundalk) Ltd, Rockwell Ltd, Glenveagh Homes Ltd, and J Murphy (Developments) Ltd.

In his judgement issued yesterday Judge Humphreys said that by removing all of the phasings of residential zoning from relevant lands in the Southern environs, the council had departed from a “strategic” or plan-led approach to development and had allowed the substitution in effect of a developer-led approach to development – in effect “a building site Darwinism whereby developers, not the council, will determine which of the zoned lands in the Southern environs will actually absorb the provided allocation for housing”.

He said that indeed, some of the developers concerned “almost revel” in the “survival-of-the-fittest analogy, arguing that the over-zoning of lands to a greater level than that required for housing would promote “competition” between developers.

He said that the race-to-the-finish outcome thereby envisaged under the current plan was that only the first 1,631 housing units that are consented, will be provided, wherever these may be located, but not the most appropriate 1,631 units as viewed in objective planning terms.

The judge said that this "created the very difficulty of coordination of developments that the National Planning Framework had warned against. Indeed, it undermined such coordination because it eliminated any binding determination by the council of which among the zoned lands can be developed for housing during the life of the plan", he said.

“The most that the council will be able to do under the plan is to propose priority areas, but that will only be a material consideration, not a legally effective requirement.

The approach taken also undermines potential coordination between Meath and Louth county councils because it potentially creates a fait accompli prior to any potential agreement of a joint approach to the development of Drogheda overall – an issue in which Louth is the senior partner, viewing the matter in purely geographical terms”.

Judge Humphreys drew attention to the fact that in the previous development plan adopted in 2012, it was noted that there was an excess of residential zoned lands in most of the towns and villages of Meath for which local areas plans had been prepared.

In that plan it had been shown that 19.9 hectares of land were required for residential use in the Southern environs of Drogheda but 157.2 hectares had been zoned for residential use, leading to an excess of 139.1 hectares.

The county council told councillors yesterday (Monday), that it will liaise with its legal team with reference to the implications for the County Development Plan and how it should proceed next.