An Taisce has expressed "grave concerns" about a proposed retail park near Killarney which will result in the removal of "a pleasant wooded hillside" and thousands of tonnes of soil on one of the main approach roads to the tourist town.
The plans are for a large DIY and garden centre and nine other warehouse-style stores fronting the N22 bypass.
An Taisce's honorary planning officer in Kerry said it would lead to a loss of character for the tourist town and visitors would now be greeted with what they could find in any part of the US or in any industrialised zone anywhere. "The Americans will think they are back in America again," Dr Catherine McMullin said. "This is real in-your-face."
The former Coillte site at Park was rezoned by councillors last year to allow for the retail park and other development, against the advice of planners who referred to traffic, landscape and environmental impact on flora and fauna arising from loss of habitat.
The planners also raised worries about the removal of almost half a million cubic metres of earth and the possibility of a flood risk to Killarney town and its environs.
Killarney executive planner Fiona O'Sullivan yesterday said the application formed one of the biggest received by the town council and was accompanied by applications for 186 houses and an industrial park by Dunboy Construction and Property Developers Ltd.
It included an environmental impact statement, but the council would be asking also for a flood impact assessment, she said.
Councillors last autumn pressed ahead with the rezoning of approximately 20 acres from "unformulated" to retail park residential and commercial. Until three years ago when the town boundary was expanded, the site had been designated an area of prime special amenity.
The site preparations for the retail park will see the reshaping of the hill and "45,000 lorry loads of material leaving the site", An Taisce submit. All but an upper row of trees will be removed.
An Taisce said that properly speaking, this was a quarrying operation and the developer should be asked to comply with quarrying guidelines.