Government looking to zone lands in Laois to allow for 12,000 new houses in the next 10-years

The Government recently announced new zoning targets for each county council to support increased house delivery and has asked councillors in Laois to consider voting to increase its zoning of lands to provide for 1,244 new houses each year, for the next 10 years.

According to Deputy Sean Fleming current various adopted county development plans provide enough zoned land to provide 48,484 houses per annum nationally and that the Government said that the figure will be increased to 55,598 for each of the next 10 years.

Deputy Fleming said: “However, Laois has been requested to provide a much greater increase in the zoned land for housing than most counties.

“Currently the Laois Development Plan can facilitate 666 new houses per annum in Laois. The Government has asked Laois to increase zoning to provide for 1,244 new houses each year for the next 10 years. This is an increase of 87% in zoned land in the county for housing. Some other counties have also been given high targets, but Laois is third highest in the county in the request to increase more land for housing.” 

The Castletown based TD said: “People can see there is a shortage of land for housing in the county. There are a lot of new houses being built in Portlaoise and there is a growing demand, and this is adding to the price of houses.” 

He said that he is now calling on Laois County Council when they are reviewing their County Development Plan to “also ensure that the other towns and villages in the county be identified for additional housing to facilitate local people to be able to get homes closer to the area they are from.

“Overall, it is necessary with the growing population in the country, it is inevitable that we need more houses, and it is important that we have sufficient land zoned to enable both the private sector and the local authority build these homes.”