Council moves on plan for 5,000 homes on lands between Inchicore and Ballyfermot

Dublin City Council is looking to move on rezoning lands between Inchicore and Ballyfermot, paving the way for more than 5,000 homes, new employment spaces, and community centres. 

“The scale is significant,” said Malachy Bradley, a senior planner, speaking at a meeting of the council’s South Central Area Committee meeting on 19 November.

But the changes will be gradual, he said. “It’s not an overnight, you know, deployment of four or five thousand units in an area.”

The council is also, alongside the land rezoning, establishing a masterplan to direct and phase what is built on the lands, which fall under the City Edge project, he said. 

That draft masterplan covers an area that takes in part of the southern and eastern edges of the Inchicore Railworks, show slides.

The area also extends westwards, across the industrial lands either side of the  Jamestown Road and Kylemore Way – and also a little over the busy thoroughfare of Kylemore Road.

The proposal is one of the first big moves by Dublin City Council under the City Edge project, which looks to transform, eventually, 700 hectares on the western edges of the city.

At the meeting on 19 November, councillors stressed the need for consultation with the existing communities around the Kylemore site, and asked what levers the council currently has to ensure sustainable and quality development.

Origins of the plans

The move to rezone the lands stems from the new housing growth requirements across the city, triggered by the new National Planning Framework, said Bradley.

That set out housing growth requirements for different council areas, and required councils to update development plans to make sure there is enough land zoned to meet those.

A Dublin City Council analysis as part of that noted “future development areas” – the Dublin Industrial Estate and surroundings in Glasnevin, and lands at Kylemore Road and Naas Road, which had already been flagged within the City Edge project. 

Now, the council has its proposals drawn up for the lands at Kylemore, both for rezoning the lands, and incorporating the masterplan into the city’s existing development plan, said Bradley.

Ronan Fallon, a council planner, said that the lands at Kylemore – as well as other lands at Naas Road – are “priority areas” within the City Edge project. So, they should be built out quicker than other parcels, he said. 

At the moment, the lands that fall within the Kylemore masterplan are mostly zoned Z6, for employment and enterprise. 

A lot of it’s kind of an industrial area, with warehouses, massive ESB batteries, vast car parks, things like that. 

The council wants to rezone the lands as Z14, said Fallon, which is for strategic development and regeneration areas (SDRAs). Those are areas which the council considers can deliver many homes and facilities.

The masterplan is built around two anchors, said Fallon. 

One at the western end is the proposed Kylemore Rail Station, part of the Dart+ South West project, he said. 

That project’s meant to turn the existing rail line from Hazelhatch through Kylemore into town into a high-frequency, electrified Dart line.

A major centre would be built out around the new Kylemore station, he says, meaning the significant commercial and shop spaces would go there. 

That would account for the bulk of the 170,000sqm of space for employment that is planned, he said – and should translate to space for about 8,000 jobs.

At the meeting, independent Councillor Vincent Jackson said that he was mindful that there are already sizeable employers in the area.

“We shouldn’t be doing anything that will interfere with local employment because that reduces the necessity for people to have to travel for work,” he says. Communities need jobs and housing, he said.

But there are lots of lands that are redundant for years, he said, so “I think development on those will be welcome in the area”.

The second anchor for the site, meanwhile, would be at the eastern end of the lands, said Fallon. 

That’s where the old CIÉ Chassis Production Factory on Jamestown Road is, which is currently owned by the Office of Public Works (OPW).

Plans would see a significant educational, cultural, or social use around the factory, said Fallon.

Plans also show three new schools, centred on a big park, and community spaces peppered throughout the plan area, said Fallon, but the factory site would also be a hub. 

The factory may be handed over to the Land Development Agency (LDA), said Fallon. 

The government’s last housing plan, Housing for All, earmarked state lands to be transferred to the LDA – and those include lands from the OPW, but also potentially from ESB, which has a big substation on the southern boundary of the site, and from Irish Rail.

The idea is for the Inchicore Railway Works site to be shrunk, and the freed-up lands given to the LDA for primarily housing, he said.

At a high level, the plans expect to add between 4,200 and 5,300 new homes throughout the masterplan area, said Fallon.

Fallon also ran through the planned transport infrastructure. 

A green line with cycling and walking infrastructure runs on the map through the wider area, linking Tymon Park to the south upwards to Phoenix Park, he said.

Around that green infrastructure would be significant public open space – including a big new park in the middle of the planned Kylemore scheme, with three new schools near it, he said.

The National Transport Authority is looking at whether the proposed Luas line out to Lucan would run through the area, so they’re leaving provision for that, said Fallon. “But we aren’t dependent on it.”

The feedback

Councillors stressed, at the meeting, the importance of engaging with community groups.

Consultation around the Bluebell Waterways project – a plan by the LDA and the council to build about 400 cost-rental and social homes not far from the Kylemore area – was great, said Daithí Doolan, the Sinn Féin councillor. Something similar would be gold-standard, he said.

Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty said he knew the timeline is short for getting this done. 

But he is conscious too that these are communities fighting for new schools, and to preserve local public transport, and then hearing of big new developments on the doorstep, he said, so it’s important that they are brought along in the process.

“If possible, we should be trying to meet as many groups as possible,” he said.

Bradley, the senior planner, said that existing communities can’t be left behind in the  regeneration of significant areas. “I think there’s a just transition piece within that that must be recognised.”

Council planners were already taking on board councillor feedback so far, and setting up to meet with groups in the area, he said.

Doolan, the Sinn Féin councillor, also raised the question of who has control of the lands – and so how much the council can shape what is built on them once they are rezoned.

“What we want to avoid is a blank cheque for private developers,” he said, who may “come in, take the land, build low-quality, low-grade housing and then they’re gone. And they leave behind homes that are not fit for purpose.”

Can the council work with the Department of Housing to ensure high-quality homes for people who can live there for long-term, put down roots, with services for children? he asked.

“What influence do we have over the private developers?” said Doolan. 

And for public lands, “is the funding available to ensure that we can deliver quality homes, housing and infrastructure?” he said.

Bradley said that it is on planners to try to make sure they are quality homes and communities. 

Some of the land is public, but much is in private ownership, he said. “While we have certain tools, it is still within the private owners to determine what exactly happens with those lands.”

They can influence whether development happens, by applying the Residential Zoned Land Tax (RZLT), which is a fiscal incentive to redevelop, he said.

The RZLT is an annual tax of 3 percent of market value on land that could have homes on it but doesn’t.

Another way the council can influence what’s built in the Kylemore area is by buying land there, Bradley said. 

“There are different abilities that we have there,” he said.

At the meeting, Fallon said the council hopes to put its rezoning proposal out for public consultation in mid-December for about a month. 

Compiling the feedback and responding, and then going back to members would likely go before councillors to vote in March next year, he said.

Sharing in the rising tide

One issue that wasn’t raised at the meeting was the question of whether the state gets any benefit from the uplift in land value that would come with the land rezoning.

When councillors rezone land from industrial to residential, the land value shoots up. 

The last Minister for Housing, Darragh O’Brien, a Fianna Fáíl TD, put forward a few proposals that would have required a landowner to share a percentage of that increase in their land value with the council.  

In December 2021, O’Brien first published one round of proposals.

They would “respond to long-standing issues arising from the impact of ‘hope value’ in the land market, which leads to speculation that affects the value of land and as a result, the viability of building, both of which feed into the cost of housing,” said the department release at the time.

In April 2023, he published an updated proposal. 

And, in September 2024, he introduced the Land (Zoning Value Sharing) Bill. But that lapsed with the dissolution of the Dáil in November that year.

Social Democrats TD and housing spokesperson Rory Hearne said that TDs can restore fallen bills.

But “it is unfortunate that this bill may never be restored by government as they have very much become trapped by this notion of viability which really means increasing developers’ profits”, he said.

The government’s new housing plan, Delivering Homes, Building Communities, is light on detail on what it now plans in relation to sharing land values.

“Mechanisms are needed to make sure that the State gets a fair share of the increase in land value that comes from public decisions – like zoning or designating land,” it says.

“Government will bring forward measures following a broader review of the development contributions process,” says the plan. 

Development contributions are levies paid by developers as a condition of their planning permissions, and are used by councils to provide essential public infrastructure.

The government’s new housing plan says that its review of these contributions “will consider the impact of contributions on the viability of housing projects” and “the need for the State to be resourced to provide the infrastructure that is necessary to support the delivery of housing, and the facilities that will result in the creation of sustainable and well-balanced communities”.

The Department of Housing hasn’t responded yet to a query about the status of the plan to enact a bill for land-value sharing, given the rezoning to take place on foot of the new National Planning Framework.