Dublin City Councillors say its 'crazy' the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) wont attend a meeting to discuss housing.
Several aspects of the council's development plan have been meet with criticism by the Regulator.
These include, amongst other things, removing the requirement that 40% of apartments in Build-To-Rent (BTR) developments would be required to be ‘standard build to sell apartments’ and removal of restrictions on BTR schemes of less than 100 units.
The OPR has put forward a series of recommendations, and under current legislation the council must comply with them
Fine Gael Councillor James Geoghegan says he's frustrated the regulator won't send a representative to at least explain the changes:
"Their recommendations directly contradict some of the recommendations we've got from our city planner. And at the very least it seems just completely crazy that they won't come in, explain their rationale and hear from councillors about their view".
Cllr Geoghegan went on to say:
" I can see no justification for it to be honest with you, and either can any of the other parties' councillors. This isn't a party political issue, this is a democracy issue".
Spoke with @98FM earlier today about the refusal of the @PlanningReg to attend a special meeting on Monday night to discuss their criticisms of our draft development plan. Their ongoing refusal to attend and engage is a slap in the face for local democracy. pic.twitter.com/AH08S1VohF
— James Geoghegan 🌈👨👩👧👦 🚴🕒🏡🇺🇦🇪🇺 (@GeogheganCllr) June 19, 2022
