Tipperary councillors demand Residential Zoned Land Tax be 'sent back to powers that be'

Nenagh local councillors want Tipperary County Council to send back the proposed Residential Zoned Land Tax under the Finance Act to the Government because it could penalise people who do not want their land zoned for housing.

They were told at the February District Council meeting by planner AnneMarie Devanney that the council was tasked with identifying land for housing and the proposal was to drive housing development.

Landowners affected can appeal any decision to An Bord Pleanála, she said.

However, Cllr Michael O’Meara said that there was no appetite to develop land at present, and that the tax could impose a substantial cost on people.

“Land could have been zoned in a different time and times have changed. The tax has to be changed,” he said.

The councillor highlighted that “at no point did this rear its ugly head” when they were discussing the County Development Plan, which, he said, they had put together “in good faith”.

“This has to be taken up at national level,” he said. “It is just causing fear and trepidation in people’s lives.”

Cllr Ger Darcy said he could understand the tax being applied in large urban areas, but not in rural settings.

He advised taking the issue to the full council and then to the “powers that be”.

Cllr Joe Hannigan warned landowners could be taxed on land they didn’t want zoned for development.

Cllr John Carroll said the council should be tackling derelict houses, which he described as a “key issue”.

“We should be zoning from the town outwards,” he said.

Cllr Phyll Bugler was fearful that Ballina could be overrun with development.

“At the end of the day we are a farming town. We need a bit of greenery in the town,” she said.

Ms Devanney said that she appreciated the councillors’ frustration, but said that was what the council had to work with and warned that if there was no zoned land, there would be no housing delivery.

She said the council had to make its decision based on population predictions.

Ms Devanney assured councillors that lands in Cloughjordan and Ballina would not be taxed until there was an upgrade of waste water plants.

The planner said that they were fortunate in Tipperary in that local areas were undergoing local area development plans where councillors had a role.

Cllr Seamus Morris pointed out that the National Development Plan had been drawn up in a “different world” that was pre-Covid and people were now looking for more housing around Tipperary.

He wouldn’t be in favour of dezoning any land for housing, but maintained the NDP needed to be redrawn as it was based on 2016 population trends and there were now 5,000 Ukrainian people in Tipperary through no fault of their own.

He was told there would be no dezoning of serviced land and the council would look to make sure they have adequate services when they were looking at the plan.

In that regard, a reference in the proposal on Nenagh’s waste water plan could have been clearer, he was told.

And Marcus O’Connor, District Manager, said: “Nenagh is open for development.”