I'm somewhat politically engaged in my local municipality over this issue; we're a small suburb directly adjacent to Chicago, and every viable piece of residential land was developed, overwhelmingly SFZ, decades ago.
The problem we have here seems like the solution this article proposes: any new development will, automatically, generate organized opposition from the block (and neighboring blocks) it's sited on, and the challenge is ensuring that the planning and zoning variance process makes decisions for the good of the municipality, and not just to suit the preferences of the neighbors.
I don't know how much our experience ports over to Ireland (probably not that much), but to me this is the opposite of what you'd want; rather, you'd want to do what California ostensibly does: moving control over residential zoning/planning to a level of government high enough that concentrated local interests can't derail the more important diffuse interest in getting more housing built.
The problem we have here seems like the solution this article proposes: any new development will, automatically, generate organized opposition from the block (and neighboring blocks) it's sited on, and the challenge is ensuring that the planning and zoning variance process makes decisions for the good of the municipality, and not just to suit the preferences of the neighbors.
I don't know how much our experience ports over to Ireland (probably not that much), but to me this is the opposite of what you'd want; rather, you'd want to do what California ostensibly does: moving control over residential zoning/planning to a level of government high enough that concentrated local interests can't derail the more important diffuse interest in getting more housing built.