COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF DEVELOPMENT PLAN MEETING

Thursday, June 17, 2021

MOTION NO.

MOTION: Councillor M. Johansson

In Chapter 13 Implementation and Monitoring Table 13.4 Zoning REGEN to move Data Centre from Open for Consideration to Not Permitted.

REPORT:

The motion seeks to move the use class Data Centre from ‘Open for Consideration’ to ‘Not Permitted’ in the ‘Use Classes Related to Zoning Objective’ table for the REGEN zone.

Dublin is one of the fastest growing data centre markets in Europe with a significant element of this foreign direct investment occurring in South Dublin. It must be acknowledged also the requirement for data centres is increasing with social and technology needs such as 5G, smart cities and artificial intelligence.  Data Centre bring significant direct and indirect economic benefits to the County including a highly skilled workforce. Companies also benefit from clustering which allows collaboration and sharing of Knowledge.

There are also costs to the clustering of data centres in South Dublin. They are currently one of the most space extensive land use types and the visual and environmental and amenity impacts of such large-scale developments can be significant especially in cases where clustering occurs. In addition, technology is constantly evolving with cloud computing now shifting to Edge computing and a need for smaller data centres closer to cities and end users is now becoming an issue.

As a strategic document the County Development Plan must take all of these issues into account. In order to address these issues, the Plan has provided for the limited consideration of data centres within the zoning use categories. This use is ‘Open for Consideration’ on lands zoned for regeneration uses (REGEN), on lands zoned for employment and enterprise uses (EE) and on lands zoned for Major Retail Uses (MRC). The ‘Open for Consideration’ categorisation means that each application will be considered on its merits taking into account all relevant issues including the concentration of data centres in the area and the cumulative impacts on the environment of this concentration. The plan also contains detailed objectives around the limiting of the impact of space intensive developments and associated objectives around the provision of landscaping and GI interventions on all sites.

Given the complex issues surrounding this type of development, it is considered that the approach taken in the CE draft is reasonable and appropriate.

RECOMMENDATION:  It is recommended that the motion is not adopted.