Property executive typed houses motion, hearing told

A Fine Gael councillor has told the Mahon tribunal that a motion which concentrated higher housing density on land owned by Monarch Properties at Cherrywood in south Dublin had been typed by an executive of the company.

Cllr Donal Marren said Monarch executive Richard Lynn had offered to provide secretarial assistance for the motion. However, he said that detail in the motion had been set out "at my prescription". He said that if secretarial support had been available from elsewhere he would have taken it.

The effect of the motion proposed by Cllr Marren was that four houses per acre were allowed on the land owned by Monarch but the rest of the area was zoned at a density of one house per acre.

Cllr Marren said the motion represented "real politik". He said that "sometimes you have to balance your realities with your ideals".

He said the motion was not intended to infer any benefit to Monarch vis-a-vis the other landowners in the area.

He said there were sensitivities that had to be catered for.

Cllr Marren said there had been a fairly bruising debate on the council about the Cherrywood lands and that some members were strongly opposed to a higher density.

"I felt that it was academic in a way as the lands to the north had no access by road so that the land that mattered was the land in the ownership of Monarch Properties which could be developed, and was developed in the short term, because the access led onto the Wyattville Road."

He also said that there was an affluent and well organised group of people at the northern end of the area who did not want any development whatsoever.

However, he said the opposite was the case at the southern end at Loughlinstown.

He said these were the people he was closest to and that they fully supported the Monarch proposals as they believed that it would lift their area which had been the subject of unemployment and social problems.

Cllr Marren said the land at the northern end of the Cherrywood area could not be developed until a new link road was developed.