The Draft Kildare Town Local Area Plan 2023 – 2029, published last month for public consultation and for which observations and submissions are due today, proposes to reduce the amount of land for residential development by 55.5 hectares, or the equivalent of 2,000 homes according to property advisor, Savills Ireland.
The new plan has reduced phase 1 residential land for residential development from 73.2 hectares in the previous plan (2012 - 2018) to just 26.4 hectares. This led to the number of residential phase 1 sites falling from 14 in the previous plan to four in the current plan. Residential land as part of mixed-use schemes fell from 20 hectares to 11.35 hectares between the two plans. In total, the quantum of land has declined by 60% giving a reduction of 2,000 homes.
Most importantly, however, this reduction has been achieved by de-zoning serviced land, which contradicts the directive given by Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien that no zoned serviced land should be de-zoned in local authority development plans. While these lands have been moved to new residential phase 2, these are longer-term lands earmarked for development and not for development in the immediate future. Furthermore, even residential phase 2 lands have been reduced from 58.5 hectares to 24.7 hectares, a reduction of 58% of our stock of longer-term residential development land.
John Ring, Director of Research at Savills Ireland, said:
"The decision to de-zone such a significant amount of land for residential development in the Kildare Town Local Area Plan 2023 - 2029 is concerning. It appears that the Minister’s directive that no serviced zoned land should be de-zoned, is being ignored. At a time when we need more housing, not less, it is critical that we do not de-zone serviced land – as per the Minister’s directive - to address the urgent need for new homes."
What is happening in Kildare Town is a tangible example of the impact of national planning policy which is choking off the supply of development land for housing in our towns around Ireland. It is a problem entirely of our own making, but also one that is entirely in our power to stop. The Minister issued clear guidelines on this, but it appears that the message isn’t getting through.”
In October of 2022, Savills published a Land Availability Study which revealed that there has been a large reduction of zoned residential land available for development within the Greater Dublin Area (Dublin, Meath, Kildare, Wicklow), which would have had the capacity to accommodate over 100,000 units, or the equivalent of ten years supply.