The council is mapping which of its lands are good for public housing. Councillors want to see it, too.

At a Dublin City Council housing committee meeting last Wednesday, councillors welcomed the news of a project underway to map council-owned land considered suitable for public housing.

But they baulked when they learned it wasn’t clear if they’d have access to it.

The Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) is working with all councils nationwide and the Department of Housing on the online map, said Dublin City Council director of housing delivery, Dave Dinnigan.

“The map will illustrate remaining landbanks suitable for housing and the social and affordable housing schemes that have received funding,” said the presentation to councillors on 13 March.

It will also have info on how sites are zoned, whether they’re serviced, and how many homes they could fit.

Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney said she had asked before for a map of all council-owned land – not just that for housing schemes – to help make informed decisions, in particular when it comes to rezoning votes.

“So that we can be part of the process of planning for sustainable communities for the future,” said Cooney. But she hadn’t gotten it.

She wanted to see this new map as soon as possible, she said.

But, the presentation at the meeting read: “Data set is owned and operated by LGMA – discussions to make this publicly accessible are required.” (Those discussions have started, said a council spokesperson later.)

But a spokesperson for the LGMA said that the Department of Housing hosts and manages this social housing map, while the LGMA manages the IT system that lets councils track, review and report on the data.

And it is councils themselves who add all the data to it, they said. “It is an internal reporting and review system for use by local authorities.”

The LGMA spokesperson said it is the Land Development Agency’s remit to map public lands.

Since the public owns the land, they should be able to access the social housing maps, says Lorcan Sirr, a housing lecturer at TU Dublin.

Mapping lands means owners – such as Dublin City Council – can plan for the future and track progress on builds.

“Everybody who has land should have a basic land terrier,” he says. (That’s a record system for land and property.)

“If you don’t currently have a comprehensive database, that means that the land is not well managed,” says Sirr.

A new map

Snapshots of the map at the meeting showed sites shaded yellow with funding in place for homes, and others shaded red where no homes are – as yet – funded.

“I’m sure there are other people out there in both the construction and political world that would be interested in being able to tease around with it,” said Labour Councillor Alison Gilliland, who chairs the housing committee.

A map of all the land suitable for housing, including sites in private ownership, would be even more useful, said Gilliland.

Sirr, the housing lecturer, says the Department of Housing used to have a map of publicly owned land on its website. But it’s not up there anymore, he said.

However, the Land Development Agency recently published a map of publicly owned land that it deemed suitable for housing, says Sirr.

The main purpose of these mapping exercises is for the state to see what it has and to track progress in developing it, he says.

Some councils may discover they own land that they didn’t know they had, he says.

It is handy if councillors can glance at a map and easily see what land they should consider rezoning, he says.

But, says Sirr, if land in cities isn’t zoned and serviced that isn’t a major obstacle, as electricity and water connections are always nearby.

“In urban areas, you are never far away from being serviced, if you wish to be serviced,” he says. “Rezoning is done with the stroke of a pen.”

Councillors need a bigger map

Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney said that as well as the mapping exercise being discussed, councillors need a bigger map that tracks all council-owned land.

Zoning land is a core power for councillors, but making calls on that can be difficult if they don’t know what the council owns, said Cooney, the Green Party councillor, at the housing committee meeting last week.

“I’m finding it a little frustrating that we don’t know what property or lands are owned by Dublin City Council,” she said. “There is possible potential for it to be zoned for housing.”

Councillors might rezone more industrial lands for example, she said. “We could look at them, we could change the zoning if we thought it was suitable for housing.”

Councillors also need to look at areas that are thirsty for green space, said Cooney. In other cases, a site unsuitable for housing could be swapped with another public body for land that is suitable, she said.

“I just find, four and a half years, very frustrating that I still am not aware of what Dublin City Council owns,” she said. (She put in a motion to the North Central Area Committee requesting this map be developed in October 2019.)

“I think it would be very useful for us to have sight of this,” said Cooney.

Still, she wants to see the map being put together with the LGMA as soon as possible, she said. Some sites could be left grey if the officials are not yet sure if it is suitable for housing, she said.

Gilliland, who chairs the housing committee, said she would write to the chair of the council’s planning committee to request an update on Cooney’s request for a map of all council-owned land.

Dublin City Council’s Director of Housing Delivery Dave Dinnigan, said that the map is currently a work in progress but should become key in strategizing around how to use land in the future.

“It is interesting to see how our activities are mapped spatially across the city,” he said.