{"id":659774,"date":"2026-10-19T23:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T23:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/659774\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T23:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T23:10:09","slug":"dublin-council-denies-st-edmundsbury-housing-rezoning-but-gives-green-light-to-two-other-sites-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/659774\/","title":{"rendered":"Dublin council denies St Edmundsbury housing rezoning but gives green light to two other sites \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/south-dublin-county-council\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/south-dublin-county-council\/\">South Dublin County councillors<\/a> upheld the decision <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/dublin\/2026\/10\/19\/south-dublin-councillors-pressured-to-reverse-block-on-development-of-magniermcmanus-liffey-valley-land\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/dublin\/2026\/10\/19\/south-dublin-councillors-pressured-to-reverse-block-on-development-of-magniermcmanus-liffey-valley-land\/\">not to rezone an area of land<\/a> belonging to businessmen <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/john-magnier\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/john-magnier\/\">John Magnier<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/jp-mcmanus\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/jp-mcmanus\/\">JP McManus<\/a> in the Liffey valley following a vote on Monday afternoon.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The St Edmundsbury site, on the southside of the river Liffey, close to Lucan and just west of the Hermitage Golf Club, will not be rezoned. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">However, sites at Finnstown Castle, between Lucan and Adamstown, and at Coldcut Road, south of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/liffey-valley\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/liffey-valley\/\">Liffey Valley shopping centre<\/a>, will be rezoned for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/housing-crisis\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/housing-crisis\">housing<\/a> after the council vote.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Irish Times previously reported that the council\u2019s chief executive, Colm Ward, had proposed rezoning the three sites, which combined could accommodate more than 1,700 homes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">It followed an edict last summer from Minister for Housing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/james-browne\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/james-browne\">James Browne<\/a> that all local authorities must provide significant additional land for housing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Councillors previously voted against rezoning the land.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A number of councillors on Monday raised the issue that they had to vote more than once on the issue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Councillor Daniel Loftus of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/sinn-fein\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/sinn-fein\/\">Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> said: \u201cI understand this policy that we have to have a second vote, but we already voted on this. People have made their points clear.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/people-before-profit-solidarity-pbps\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/people-before-profit-solidarity-pbps\/\">People Before Profit-Solidarity<\/a> councillor Jess Spear said: \u201cThe process has created a loss of trust and confidence in democratic decision making. The community feels that the council is just holding another vote to get the outcome that you want, which you are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">At the beginning of the meeting Ward said: \u201cI do appreciate the challenges and the difficulties and the burden that has been carried by councillors throughout this process.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He said the second vote on the issue was a \u201cstatutory process\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/ireland\/2026\/10\/18\/west-dublin-residents-appeal-for-final-vote-against-controversial-land-rezoning\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dublin residents protest against rezoning of land owned by John Magnier and JP McManusOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt\u2019s not something we\u2019re trying to do to get people to change their minds or anything else, that\u2019s the process and we have to respect that and we have to see that through,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The council meeting heard that 1,710 submissions were received, including prescribed bodies, raising \u201cvarious observations\u201d and were \u201cheavily weighted to St Edmundsbury and Finnstown\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Irish Times previously reported that more than 1,600 submissions opposed the rezoning of the St Edmundsbury site.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A demonstration against the proposal to rezone St Edmundsbury was held in Lucan, west Dublin, on Saturday, by the Save St Edmundsbury Protest Committee, calling on local councillors to vote against the proposal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The land is currently zoned as \u201chigh amenity\u201d due to its environmental and natural amenity value.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"South Dublin County councillors upheld the decision not to rezone an area of land belonging to businessmen John&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659775,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3662,61,60,7116,20042,66155,43622,21104,43,43923,3415,13357],"class_list":["post-659774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-housing-crisis","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-james-browne","tag-john-magnier","tag-jp-mcmanus","tag-liffey-valley","tag-lucan","tag-news","tag-people-before-profit-solidarity-pbps","tag-sinn-fein","tag-south-dublin-county-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659774"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659774\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}