The Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin has branded as “short-sighted” a recommendation by Dublin City Council chief executive Owen Keegan against zoning church lands for housing.

The archdiocese earlier this year made submissions on the city development plan seeking residential zoning for more than 30 churches sites across the city.

Mr Keegan has recommended city councillors reject the majority of these submissions. In most cases, any residential development on the site was likely to require church demolition, while a number of the churches were protected structures which would limit development in their grounds, he said.

In a strongly worded statement, the archdiocese said Mr Keegan’s recommendation was “short-sighted and unnecessarily restricts the diocese’s efforts to assist in meeting the city’s housing needs”.

The archdiocese said the requested rezoning would “more robustly support our stated objective regarding the delivery of much-needed housing” and it was “disappointed that the flexibility available under the status quo will no longer exist”.

Last March, the Government asked the Church to co-operate in addressing the housing crisis by making surplus land and buildings available for housing development.