Review co-living developments during the County Development Plan (CDP) process.

Green Party Councillor Lourda Scott welcomes the agreement of the Wicklow Chief Executive on her direction to review co-living developments during the County Development Plan (CDP) process.

Speaking on the County Development Plan Cllr Scott says: “This is a land use plan for all of County Wicklow that is reviewed on a five yearly basis. The first stage of the process, that takes about 2 years, has been completed. At this early point of the CDP, Councillors have the opportunity to issue directions which are strategic in nature and are missing from the current plan.  I directed the Chief Executive to review relevant sections in the CDP to have regard to emerging health issues such as Covid-19, particularly in relation to increased density of living and co-living housing units. There is currently a gap in our Plan even though we are living through a pandemic, which has been with us for 9 months now and is far from being over.  As we develop our CDP for the next five years it seems critical to me that we take this public health crisis and any future crisis we may experience into consideration. The area of high density living, especially high profit making developments such as co-living units is a particular example of the type of living that we should be discouraging.

Co-living developments are simply incompatible with current public health policy as potentially up to a 100 people may end up sharing kitchen and living areas making social distancing impossible to achieve. Within an individual space of as little as 15 m sq. the advisability of isolating has to be seriously questioned.   We have seen the evidence of the huge transmission factors when people are in close proximity to each other or sharing facilities.  We’ve seen outbreaks in meat processing plants and Direct Provision centres, most recently in Bray, as proof of this.  We’re living through the evidence based measures put in place by NPHET to prevent transmission of the virus through social distancing and number restrictions indoors

I want a precautionary approach to be taken by our CDP as we cannot predict when the next pandemic will be, or indeed if there will be a further wave of Covid-19 in a few years’ time.

I was delighted that the Chief Executive agreed with me at the Council meeting, that new measures will be introduced to address these concerns as the plan is drafted and that he will write to Minister O’Brien seeking further details of the date and terms of reference of his review on co-living developments.  This is great news for Co Wicklow.” Scott concluded.