The Office of the Planning Regulator has recommended to the Minister for Local Government and Planning that a Draft Direction be issued to Galway City Council in relation to the adoption of the Galway City Development Plan 2023 – 2029.
The OPR Direction lists 15 land parcels which were the subject of a land use zoning changes as part of the Material Alterations to the Draft Galway City Development Plan. The OPR recommends to the Minister to direct the Galway City Council in each case to reverse the zoning.
The Draft Direction lists a further 11 land parcels where the OPR recommends to the Minister to direct the Planning Authority to delete the land use zoning for each land parcel and that the subject land becomes unzoned.
The 26 land parcels were the subject of Material Alterations proposed by City Councillors rezoning and were made against the advice of the Chief Executive, the planning executive and in contradiction to the recommendations of the Planning Regulator.
The Regulator found that the Development Plan had not been made in a manner consistent with his earlier recommendations, which required specific changes to the Development Plan to ensure; consistency with the National Planning Framework (NPF), the North Western Regional Assembly Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy (RSES), the core strategy of the adopted Development Plan, and the Development Plans Guidelines.
Specifically, the Regulator called out material amendments to the Draft Development Plan adopted by the elected members to zone land for development in peripheral locations, leapfrogging unzoned and/or undeveloped land, and in so doing does not apply the sequential approach to development to support compact growth of the City environs and is not consistent with the objectives to promote sustainable settlement and transportation strategies under section 10(2)(n) of the Act, in Galway City.
The Regulator noted, in particular, the need to strengthen the value of greenbelts and green spaces across the City and that this was undermined by the inclusion of extensive areas of land zoned Residential R2 (formerly Low Density Residential (LDR)) in a piecemeal manner in unserviced and peripheral and/or isolated locations, and more often in areas otherwise zoned Agriculture (A) or Agriculture and High Amenity (G).
When a Draft Direction is issued by the Minister regarding a development plan, those parts of the Galway City Development Plan 2023-2029 referred to in the Draft Direction shall be taken to have not come into effect. A public notice of the Draft Direction will be published within two weeks giving details of the Draft Direction and stating that written submissions or observations in respect of the Draft Direction may be made to the Planning Authority during a two-week period, and that these will be taken into consideration by the OPR before it makes a recommendation to the Minister on the matter.
A final decision will be made by the Minister in relation to issuing a Direction. Where the Minister issues a Direction, it is deemed to have immediate effect and its terms are considered to be incorporated into the plan.
The effect of the Draft Direction will see the Roscam Village area on the Roscam Peninsula unzoned and previous Material Alterations revert a number of land parcels back to Agriculture/High Amenity.
On Friday Jan 13th, the Minister directed the CE to comply with the OPR’s recommendations on all 26 changes for the Development Plan. Councillors were informed accordingly.
Click here for a details of the land parcels in question