In both cases, councillors pushed changes to the planned variations that they said were meant to force the construction of not only housing, but other infrastructure there too.
After contentious debates on Monday night, Dublin city councillors voted to rezone lands across the city, including in Finglas and in Santry.
The move was a response to the central government's demands to councils across the country to zone more land residential, which it argues will translate to more homes being built – though some critics disagree.
At a meeting that ran from 6.15pm Monday to about 12.10am on Tuesday, councillors in City Hall and those joining via video call talked through two "variations" to the city development plan.
The development plan sets out, among other things, how each parcel of land in the city is zoned. That decides what kinds of things people are likely to be able to get planning permission to build there: homes, shops, offices, industrial parks, whatever.
The first proposed variation of the night was to rezone a big swathe of land between Inchicore and Ballyfermot, which the council's calling Kylemore, and which it says could fit more than 5,000 new homes.
Lois Kapila
The second variation was to rezone a grab bag of lands across the city that included sites at EastPoint Business Park in Dublin 3, at East Wall Road, at Finglas Business Park, at Greenmount Industrial Estate in Harold's Cross, and on Fumbally Lane in Dublin 8.
As the hours passed, councillors voted these through, one by one. Then, towards the end of the night, they moved on to a proposed rezoning of lands at North Road in Finglas, and of the Shanowen Lands in Santry.
In both cases, councillors pushed changes to the planned variations that they said were meant to force the construction of not only housing, but other infrastructure there too.
On the North Road lands, local Fianna Fáil Councillor Keith Connolly proposed a motion that the council should not approve any planning permissions on those lands under the new zoning until the Luas Finglas is operational.
On the Shanowen Road lands, leaders of seven groups or political parties on the council proposed an amendment to try to force the council to make a "framework plan" for the lands, and setting out a timeline for that.
Which the amendment said, "in addition to having the potential to meet local housing need, also have the potential to provide for future local social, community cultural and economic opportunities in the area".
Council managers proposed to rezone 7.1 hectares of land on the east side of North Road in Finglas from Z6 to Z10.
This is about rezoning the lands where the Lidl, Circle K and car showrooms are, between Finglas village and Charlestown.
The current zoning favours planning applications for things that create jobs. The proposed zoning would favour more of a mix, including homes.
There's loads of new housing being built or planned right nearby, including at the nearby 43-acre Jamestown Business Park, which was rezoned a few years ago.
That has the potential for thousands of new homes, said Connolly, the Fianna Fáil councillor. And then, up the road in Charlestown, there's Piper's Corner, with 590 homes, he said.
"I'm just very concerned about overdevelopment here," Connolly said. "At the moment, I'd have major concerns about congestion."
So he proposed that approval of planning permissions on the North Road lands be put on hold until the Luas Green Line is extended, as planned, from Broombridge up through this area to Charlestown.
That scheme got planning permission last October, with construction due to start in 2029. The Minister for Transport, Fianna Fáil TD Darragh O'Brien, reportedly said this week that construction could start sooner.
"I am just amazed that a Fianna Fáil councillor would want to delay housing because the Fianna Fáil Minister for Transport isn't funding the Finglas Luas," said Green Party Councillor Ray Cunningham. "It's mind blowing."
"Perhaps he could speak to the Fianna Fáil minister for housing [James Browne TD] and between the two of them they could work it out," Cunningham said.
Sinn Féin Councillor Anthony Connaghan said there's viable businesses on the site, and there are already loads of homes being built in the area. The rezoning is just a "box ticking exercise", he said.
"We want to do this just so the minister can tick and say oh look we have X amount of land ready," Connaghan said. He urged support of Connolly's motion.
Dermot Lacey, a Labour councillor, meanwhile, urged approval of the rezonings as proposed.
"I think we should be really careful about not giving the government or the minister or the department or the agencies any excuse not to support infrastructural development," Lacey said.
"If we continue or start to block the zoning of land for residential use, the minister will come back and say to us, Well you're not playing your part, why should he?" he said.
Green Party Councillor Feljin Jose spoke against Connolly's motion. Waiting for the Luas to arrive at the site would mean "we're talking about no planning applications until the second half of the 2030s ... so we're talking about no housing here until 2040s. I can't accept that," he said.
When it came to a vote, 19 councillors voted for Connolly's motion to put a hold on planning permissions for the lands until the Luas is operational, and 34 voted against it.
This debate echoed, in a way, local councillors' anger at the government's delay of the Dart+ South West extension, which would stop in the centre of the Kylemore district that the council has been working towards rezoning for housing.
“We have a government driving at us [the council] to try and deliver more housing and then the local necessary public transport network that would make that housing more liveable for the future inhabitants, the future residents, has been pushed out,” Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty said at a meeting where that came up last December.
The Shanowen Lands are 4.3 hectares of publicly owned land on the Shanowen Road in Santry/Whitehall.
On them sit "a Garda station, a Garda operated seized vehicle compound, warehouses for the OPW and an ESB substation", Kevin Moran, an independent TD, and Minister of State in the Department of Public Expenditure, recently said in the Dáil.
Also, "A portion of the site provides a climate controlled environment for the storage of Tailte Éireann land registry documents and folios," he said. "All elements of the site are currently intensively use."
Still, there've been efforts to make the site available for housing.
Back in 2020, when the council managers proposed the rezoning of a slew of industrial parks across the city to clear the way for the development of housing on them, the Shanowen Lands were on the list.
At the time, the council thought it could fit maybe 400 more homes. But during the public consultation period, the proposed rezoning was met with objections from local residents.
There are issues with the capacity of the schools and transport infrastructure in the area to handle this many more residents, said Social Democrats Councillor Patricia Roe at the time.
“The fear is that, as has happened many times, the planning will proceed without the infrastructure being put in place,” she said.
Then in 2023 and 2025, the Shanowen Lands "were identified by the Land Development Agency as part of their reports on relevant public lands", Moran said in the Dáil.
"The OPW have subsequently engaged with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, pointing out the current intensive use of the site," Moran said.
Still, the council came back again to try to rezone the lands from Z6 to Z1, so that if the current users move on some day, housing could be built there.
However, residents remain worried that a lot of apartments have already been built in the Santry area without supporting infrastructure or community amenities, Fine Gael Councillor Declan Flanagan said back in April.
“They’re very piecemeal, and there’s no joined up thinking for Santry,” he said. A local area plan would help.
Nearly all of the 292 submissions to the public consultation about this variation to the development plan were about the Shanowen Lands, and "the majority" opposed the rezoning, said Deputy City Plannner Malachy Bradley, at the meeting Monday.
At the meeting Monday, Flanagan brought a motion about council managers' proposed rezoning of the Shanowen Lands.
But seven leaders of political parties and groups on the council got together and put together an amendment that Lord Mayor Ray McAdam said superceded that.
It said the council would commit to putting together a "framework plan" for the area, that the process would start during this calendar year, and that it would be completed during the lifetime of the current city development plan, which runs from 2022 to 2028.
Chairing the meeting, McAdam said the amendment was signed by Social Democrats Councillor Karl Stanley, Sinn Féin Councillor Daithí Doolan, Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty, Fianna Fáil Councillor Daryl Barron, Fine Gael Councillor Colm O'Rourke, and independent Councillor Malachy Steenson.
Still, some councillors spoke up with concerns.
"I don't find the language strong enough to reassure me that there will be a plan," said Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney.
"The language is aspirational" rather than concrete, said Fianna Fáil Councillor Racheal Batten.
Some said the plan for the area should have been put in place before the rezoning.
"I think we've got the cart before the horse," said People Before Profit Councillor Conor Reddy.
Independent Councillor John Lyons pointed to the proposal put forward by residents' group Santry Forum for the site. "It's a fantastic proposal", he said.
Santry Forum's plan is for a community quarter, reusing the sawtooth-roofed industrial warehouse and the Garda station, and filling the area with not only homes, but the other stuff a commmunity needs.
Their plan envisions a digital hub with co-working spaces, private offices, meeting rooms and a communal kitchen with a conference centre and cafe, it says. As well as a creche, a medical centre, artists’ studios, a gallery and rehearsal spaces, and a multi-purpose community hall.
The council has committed to making a plan for the area, said Bradley, the deputy city planner, at the meeting.
"The intent of the amendment here is to further strengthen that by putting defined timelines on that, which I think as an executive we would be comfortable with," he said.
Doolan, the Sinn Féin councillor, said he'd be supporting the amendment and the rezoning.
"We have to deliver tens of thousands of homes for people in the city if we are to impact on those languishing in homeless accommodation, languishing on our housing list, languishing on our transfer list," Doolan said. "We need to build homes, and we need to build them as fast as we can."
"Is it the perfect solution? It's not. Is it based on trust? Some of it. Residents quite rightly wanted a local plan? This amendment guarantees a plan," he said.
Councillors voted 39 to 12 to back the amendment, with one councillor abstaining, and then put through the rezoning.
At the end of the night, they backed a resolution to make the variation to the development plan, which went into effect immediately.
