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With their eyes on three sites, Fingal County Councillors agreed to write to the Minister for Housing to ask him to change the rules.
It has planning permission for 113 apartments, and community facilities.
“I feel like, if I don’t vote [for it], I’m voting against housing. If I do vote, I’m voting against greenbelt.”
For a start, it shouldn’t allow for up to 15 storeys over the road from the bungalows of Labre Park, says the coordinator of Ballyfermot Travellers Action Project.
High buildings drive up construction costs and land values, some say, which means more expensive homes.
The council says no because the planning permission is for offices. A new owner could apply to change that.
“You’ve got to question the government’s resolve,” Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan says. “They don’t seem to be showing much resolve.”
This week, Dublin City Council put out a draft masterplan for redeveloping Jamestown Business Park. It’s all private land though, so timelines are out of the council’s control.
The tax, coming in 2024, is meant to push owners of land zoned for housing to develop it quickly.
To get council managers to the bargaining table, elected representatives rezoned the site to block their plans. Chief Executive Owen Keegan was not pleased.
Local councillors are proposing to rezone it for recreational use instead, so that the playing fields there can be opened back up and retained.
Rezoning to existing residential designations pushes land values way up, making it tough to build affordable housing there, even if someone wanted to.