One of the questions I get asked most by residents is why Kilternan doesn’t have a supermarket and when will one be built? The short answer is, it’s being built now, right opposite the Blue Church. It even has a website.
A Local Area Plan (LAP) was adopted for the area in 2007 but not progressed much given the economic conditions at the time. A new plan was passed in 2013. This LAP had rules around putting in place community facilities before a lot of housing goes in. But during this plan, the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) system was brought in by the 2016 government and it bypassed the rules in the Local Area Plan that required infrastructure improvements to happen before any major new residential developments were given permission.
Thankfully this SHD system has ended and we were able to update rules in the latest plan, which will deliver more infrastructure improvements, including at the Kilternan village centre. This is a piece of land in the centre of Kilternan opposite the Blue Church that has been zoned for a “neighbourhood centre” since at least 2007. In 2023, an SHD application for 383 apartments and houses, a creche, community facility and medical facility was refused by An Bord Pleanála as the neighbourhood centre that was planned was not deemed “capable of satisfying the needs of the current and future population of Kiltiernan”, among other issues.
A fresh application was submitted in 2024 for Phase 1 of Kilternan Village Centre, with 487 homes and a neighbourhood centre, including an anchor retail store, a retail/commercial unit, a restaurant, cafe, creche and community centre. This was refused as there were details missing, but the developer then altered and resubmitted it.
This final planning application for phase 1 was approved. Now, phase 1 has 83 homes and a whole host of amenities including a medium-sized supermarket. The council insisted on improvements, including requiring the developer to build more of the shops and services before the homes. There is a requirement that this be built before 50% of homes are built on the site, so that the developer does not wait until the end to build it.
This is a hugely important piece. There are two other crucial objectives we put into the 2025 LAP: that there would be a new purpose-built community facility and a village green within the Neighbourhood Centre zoned lands.
Kilternan Village Phase 2 also has planning permission for 487 homes and additional amenities.
