The Government's planned initiative on "affordable housing" could face real problems in the autumn, not least from the complexity of present planning procedures. Last week's Bord Pleanala hearing into the refusal by Kildare County Council to grant permission for a 416-house development in Ballymore Eustace by the Liffey, for instance, raised a number of questions that may have a fundamental bearing on the proposed legislation.
The two-day hearing provided a first-class opportunity to study close-up the gavotte-like moves of the parties involved in such seminal hearings - the professional planning consultants, architects, council officials, politicians, local interest groups and private citizens.
Leading the fray for the developer, Abbeydrive Developments, was Frank Benson. Mr Benson, now a private planning consultant, is a former chairman of An Bord Pleanala and was at one time chairman and chief executive of the Custom House Docks Development Authority. His role at the hearing was akin to the conductor of a symphony orchestra, as he co-ordinated the input of architects, engineers, lawyers and sundry specialists. They argued, on the basis of empirical norms in the crowded suburbs of Cheshire and Essex (Manchester and London), that the Abbeydrive project was imperative.
In the other corner was town planning consultant Michael O'Neill, acting for the Ballymore Eustace Controlled Development group, in tandem with other resident and business alliances, most notably the local anglers.
The first day's hearing featured two former ministers, Alan Dukes and Emmet Stagg. Architect Diarmuid Herlihy, for the developer, traced the history of the application. The original strategy, he pointed out, "based on the best of Cheshire design guideline principles", had been revised downwards to 416 houses - and the council's provision for an element of "social housing" was acceded to. Some regard was also paid to local needs, for example, Montessori facilities, medical suites, a library and a social services centre.
The politicians were scathing. Mr Dukes was "not impressed" with talk of Montessori facilities, medical centres etc, as an afterthought to a major housing development. There were no proper access roads and the proposed volume of traffic would create major problems on the existing network of "ordinary winding country roads".
Mr Stagg pointed out that people on middle incomes "like a TD" could not afford the proposed houses if the current mortgage regulations on salaries were applied. The 1996 Kildare county development plan, he stressed, had accorded Ballymore Eustace "special village" status. The current county plan, said Mr Stagg, envisaged a target population of 1,500 for the village as against the figure of 719 in the last census. Submissions followed from the local interest groups, who raised objections on grounds of traffic, aesthetics, Ballymore Eustace as an internationally-renowned "mecca" for water-skiers and so on. Pick of the bunch was a jeremiad from the village's Trout and Salmon Anglers' Association which warned of "devastating environmental consequences", regardless of any plans that might be in the pipeline for a modern sewage plant.
From this point onwards one could be forgiven for thinking that it was the residents who were appealing to An Bord Pleanala and not the developers. Mr Benson arranged a line of traffic and water experts, who cited their professional credentials and statistical evidence from their experience of conurbations across the water.
At Mr Benson's side sat barrister Eamon Galligan, whose task it was to "cross-examine" the developer's professional team - getting them to stress the relevant strong points of their arguments for consideration by the planning board's inspector.
The second day was virtually all downhill for Benson and Co. It emerged that some £849,000 for necessary road improvements would be made available, as well as money to cover the cost of any additional land purchases. More fundamentally, the entire cost of the controversial £1.6 million water treatment plant would be provided free of charge to Kildare County Council - 40 per cent from the taxpayer and 60 per cent from Abbeydrive. The original conditions on which the planning authority had based its objections, it emerged, would give little difficulty, in the event.
There were two dramatic interventions: the first was when Michael Kennedy, the acting executive planning official for the Kildare planning authority, which had turned down the original application, said, as if in anticipation of the outcome of the appeal, that development in Ballymore Eustace was inevitable.
"There must be development or there will be deserted lifeless places, like what happened in France," he insisted. It was an extraordinary statement, but one that encapsulated the entire philosophy of Government and local authority thinking at this time on the housing crisis.
The second dramatic highpoint was the submission of quiet-spoken Ballymore Eustace resident Mr Matt Purcell, who objected strongly to what he called the degree of "liaison between the developer and Kildare County Council" - at a time when it was considering the application in its role as planning authority. He was equally dismayed to learn that part-funding of the water treatment project had already been arranged, courtesy of the Department of the Environment (the taxpayer), "bearing in mind that the outcome of this appeal is as yet undecided".
ala has a duty not to uphold (and not to impose) illegal conditions to planning permissions. Such a condition would be illegal on numerous grounds. The imposition of such conditions by a public authority raises questions about the integrity of the planning process at administrative level. It strikes warning bells for those enthusiastic about the prospect of public/private sector partnerships. Will they mean, `We say and you can pay'?"
Housing need, not democracy as such, is the big issue. But there could yet be lots of legal and constitutional problems for the Government to consider in the implementation of its commitment to "affordable housing".
