Calls in Cork to protect parks and pitches as government pushes councils to zone land for housing

By Peter McCarthy, Corkman

Cork County Council needs to protect the recreational spaces it owns as the government pushes local authorities to zone more land for housing, a Carrigaline councillor has argued.

Cllr Jack White put forward a motion at a recent meeting of the council calling on the local authority to commit to ensuring that the recreational lands that it owns are kept exclusively for those purposes and not rezoned for housing, commercial or other development uses.

“I'm cognisant of the fact that we are about to enter a nine or ten-month process where we'll discuss the potential zoning of a lot more land in line with the government objectives for every council to deliver a huge amount of extra housing.”

"That’s good but in our, I suppose, haste to do so I am concerned that neither the department of housing or any other government department as far as I can see nor developers will actually prioritise the delivery of social infrastructure,” the Fine Gael councillor said.

Cllr White said he was talking about parks, playing pitches, sports facilities, art centres, and creches, “all of the things that support the delivery of housing and people to live in those communities when they're built.”

"I think there is an opportunity here for us as a council to be the competent authority to actually responsibly zone in this process and to make sure that we have enough provision in new zoning considerations for the delivery of this infrastructure but also to protect what we have.”

“I think if we protect the land banks we have in place that are established for recreational use it will actually pay long-term dividends and make it an awful lot easier for all of us, management and councillors, to defend a huge amount of zoning that's coming our way and ultimately the delivery of much needed housing,” he said.

The motion was supported by Cllr Una McCarthy who said that “recreational lands are essential for community health, well-being and social life and the council has a duty to protect all council-owned recreational spaces and ensure that they're not rezoned.”

"We as elected members who will be embarking on a review of the county development plan and the variation process must do everything we can not only to preserve the open spaces but to do everything we can to create more open spaces because that's what our communities are calling out for,” she said.

Responding to the motion, Council Divisional Manager Michael Lynch told the meeting that any change to zoning would involve extensive consultation both with councillors and the public.

“In any lands that we own that are zoned for a particular purpose, the zoning will only change by virtue of or following a statute, a legislative process, through the planning process, whether it's a council's development plan review or a variation process, which you yourselves as elected members would be key members of,” he said.

The government has instructed local authorities to increase their housing targets and to vary their city and county development plans to bring more land forward for residential development.