The High Court has quashed a Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council resolution changing the zoning of lands at Carrickmines to Objective E, along with the part of the council’s 2010–2016 development plan that incorporated that change. The court remitted the zoning issue to the elected representatives, subject to the statutory process already completed before the first ministerial direction.
In a judgment delivered on 10 December 2010, Mr Justice Clarke dealt with the orders to follow an earlier judgment of 11 November. In that principal judgment, the court had concluded that two directions issued by the Minister under section 31 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 had to be quashed. The December hearing addressed the consequences for the council’s subsequent decisions and the development plan.
The council had passed a resolution on 10 March in response to the directions, changing the Carrickmines lands from a district centre designation to Objective E. It adopted the full development plan the following day, including that zoning change. Tristor Limited sought to have both council decisions quashed and asked the court to declare that the council had to restore the district centre zoning. The council opposed those requests; the State respondents took no position on them.
The judge held that the zoning change was a material alteration. Without a valid ministerial direction, the elected members could not have made it at that stage without the further public consultation required by the legislation. The 10 March resolution therefore depended on the directions that had already been found invalid. The court also concluded that the zoning change could be removed from the adopted plan without quashing the plan as a whole.
The court ordered the matter back to the council to decide the zoning of the Carrickmines lands. The elected representatives must resume the process on the basis that the process up to and including 5 March 2010, the date of the first ministerial direction, was valid and binds their further actions. The judge said the court was not deciding what zoning should apply. The council must act consistently with the 2000 Act, and the court’s order does not give it an unrestricted opportunity to restart the process or propose a material alteration if the statutory time limits would not have allowed one at the relevant stage.