Kerry councillors have ‘daunting task ahead’

KERRY has about 7,000 acres with a residential zoning and councillors, who so freely zoned land during the years of the construction boom, are now faced with the daunting task of “dezoning”.

With the building industry having ground to a halt and thousands of houses around Kerry that can’t be sold, senior council management is putting proposals before councillors to dezone a substantial proportion of this land.

According to Department of Environment statistics, Kerry councillors zoned enough land for 61,269 housing units – about six times more than what was needed for the population.

All that despite repeated advice from Tom Sheehy, senior planning engineer at the time, that Kerry did not require all that zoned land and that the number of housing units needed up to 2016 was just 11,095.

The same councillors, who so willingly bowed to zoning pressures from landowners and developers, are now engaged in a “dezoning” process that looks like it could last until the end of the year.

“Each of 12 local areas throughout the county is being dealt with individually and the aim is to reduce the amount of land zoned in accordance with the housing requirements of the projected population to 2016,” council spokesman Padraig Corkery explained.

The council has already decided to dezone almost 1,000 acres, including 600 acres in Kenmare and 370 acres in the Killorglin area.

That leaves roughly 6,000 acres for consideration, which will lead to heated debate at the county council’s Tralee headquarters, especially when development magnets such as Killarney and Dingle come up for the chop.