Government's plan for zoning is in thrall to sprawl and will slow down housing

The Green Party says new planning guidelines issued to local authorities are a recipe for bad planning and more unsustainable sprawl.

Local authorities have been instructed to revise city and county development plans agreed in 2022 and intended to last to 2028 to find more land for residential zoning.

Green Party spokesperson on Planning & Local Government, Councillor Oisín O'Connor, said this will distract from actual development and outlined the problems:

"An Taoiseach has sat at the cabinet table for 19 of the last 28 years. This week again, he tried to shift the blame for Fianna Fáil’s housing failures onto local authorities across the country. Let’s be very clear about this: housing delivery is not and has not been restricted by councils’ zoning.

"According to the government’s own figures, enough land is zoned by councils to deliver 48,000 homes a year. The failure by successive housing ministers to build much more than 30,000 homes a year has not been down to lack of zoned land. The Taoiseach is fooling nobody to suggest the councils’ zoning plans are what’s limiting new housing.

"In Dublin alone, there's 52,000 homes with planning permission where construction hasn't started. Tens of thousands more homes have started construction but are delayed by water and electricity connections. The State needs to get shovels in the ground, instead of trying to impose short-term thinking onto councils' long-term spatial plans.”