Waterford Council have acknowledged that infrastructure issues are prohibiting potential housing developments in Dungarvan.
A number of councillors expressed concerns that the area is lacking the infrastructure to support new developments at this month's meeting of the Dungarvan and Lismore District.
Plans for a new 50 social home development at Fairlane were recently approved, but there are fears demands will never be met.
“There’s not many houses at all being built around Dungarvan at the moment, despite us having zoned what we hoped was enough land to create competition in the market among landowners and developers", outlined Labour Party Councillor Thomas Phelan. "The worry is there’s nobody queueing up to avail of that land.”
Cllr. Pat Nugent said Waterford Council must address underlying issues.
"There is no development happening in Dungarvan. In a similar town like ours in Mallow, there's four developers there. Developers are coming in, looking at the sites, there's no storm water, there is issues with water. The bottom line is that as a councillor, I think that we should be highlighting these things, why developers are not starting and the reason is because the infrastructure is an issue."
Cllr. Damien Geoghegan was among those to call on Waterford Council to address the issues. He says lengthy delays have been caused by An Bord Pleanala and the current appeals process.
"Ultimately, when the planning development gets to go ahead after being at An Bórd Pleanála and after taking quite a long time at An Bórd Pleanála, those costs are going to be passed on to the people that are going to be buying the houses. That's the reality of it. I think that the government really need to have a serious look at their set-up at An Bórd Pleanála. I mean, we have a planning system in place here and it's time-based. You come in here and submit a planning application, you get an answer back within a certain time frame. Yet when it goes off to An Bórd Pleanála, it's just gone off into the wind."
"One of the things that I see as an issue is the amount of time it's taken for them to make a decision when somebody objects to An Bórd Pleanála. I respect a person's right to object and I do accept that we do need to have a third party appeals process and system in place. Taking a year, a year and a half, anything up to two years to make a decision on an application, it's unacceptable."
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