The High Court is to review a decision by Eoghan Murphy, the housing minister, to block a proposed residential development in Celbridge while granting zoning for a different site.
Earlier this month Longport Developments, owned by Damien Donegan, was granted permission to challenge ministerial orders made by Murphy’s department last year to cancel residential zoning on part of almost 13 hectares of land where Longport had hoped to build more than 270 houses.
In the order issued by Damien English, a junior minister in Murphy’s department, Kildare’s county council’s new residential zoning for part of Longport’s land was transformed into “open space and amenity” zoning.
In an affidavit, Donegan said the ministerial order created a “restrictive zoning” on the lands at Crodaun “in an entirely arbitrary fashion and amounts to an unjust and/or disproportionate interference” with the landowner’s rights. Longport is also challenging an order from Murphy’s department to overturn the council’s decision to designate lands at Donaghcumper as a strategic open place and instead zone it as “town centre”, which could allow a mix of commercial and residential units on the site.
Some have opposed any development on the Donaghcumper site because it borders the historic Castletown House.
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The High Court granted Longport permission to have both ministerial orders put under a judicial review. The judge Seamus Noonan said papers must also be served on Devondale, the developer of the Donaghcumper site, which is owned by Anthony Durkan.
In court documents, Donegan said he wanted to build 270 homes on his site with the support of Ardstone Homes. He claimed the minister’s assertion that the council’s approach was “contrary to sequential zoning of lands” was “factually incorrect” and an “irrational conclusion”.
Catherine Murphy, a Social Democrat TD for Kildare North, said she believed it made more sense to develop the Crodaun lands as they were close to a railway station, a bus service and other homes. She “warmly welcomed” the judicial review of the ministerial orders. “The vast majority of people in Celbridge are opposed to any development on the Donaghcumper site,” she said.
A spokesman for Murphy said the ministerial order was given because of statutory requirements concerning the reflection of national planning policy in local plan-making.