Kilkenny city is set to double in size in the coming years but residents in the area likely to be most affected claim little has been done to ensure growth is properly planned.
Controversy in recent weeks over a proposed inner relief road has renewed attention on the wider question of how development in Kilkenny is to be managed.
The road formed part of a draft development plan for a 1,500-acre belt in the western environs of the city where new housing and other building projects are likely to be concentrated in the next few years.
Members of a local residents' group, St Canice's Community Action, say the plan does not address key family, social, community, economic or transport issues. In a submission to Kilkenny County Council, the group says the plan is chiefly a "zoning exercise" for a vast area west of the city.
"There is no evidence of the surveys, studies and other needs analysis on which such an important development plan for the major expansion of Kilkenny city should be based."
A spokesman for Kilkenny County Council said a consultancy study into how best to develop the area was currently being prepared and was likely to be brought before the council in September.
Councillors could then make their views known and no decision would be taken until then.
Members of the St Canice's group, however, claim the consultants' brief is too narrow and the report will address only a small area of the western environs.
The scale of what's envisaged can be gauged by the fact that under the draft plan 659 acres are zoned for residential development. A multiplier of eight houses per acre and three people per house would mean a population rise of 15,816 - on top of Kilkenny's existing population of less than 20,000.
Any doubt that demand will match this level of supply is dispelled by the fact that 200 houses in the area, currently under construction, were sold before building work began and there is a waiting list of 130.
The group is supported in its call for a new strategic development plan for the entire city by the Fianna Fail TD, Mr John McGuinness, who believes Kilkenny will double in size within five to eight years.
Rather than concentrating on a "cramped space" around the proposed inner relief road, Mr McGuinness believes development should take place in a much larger corridor within an indicative western ring road recently drawn up by officials.
"Houses here that were originally sold by the corporation for £4,000 are now making £120,000," he says. "The young person coming into the market has no place to go. If you make the land available and it's no longer a scarce commodity, you'll at least stabilise those prices."
Commercial life is also bearing the brunt of the lack of adequate planning, he says. An unserviced acre of industrial land in Loughboy was sold recently for £310,000.
"There are little or no sites available for indigenous industry and it's bursting at the seams. I have people queuing up in my office looking for industrial sites - not at £310,000 an acre, mind.
"We have not, in managing the city, looked beyond where we are now and the kind of population we're going to have. We haven't done a proper land-use study. Where are the kids going to play? Where will the new road infrastructure go? How will it tie in to the established road infrastructure? How will it all impact on the city centre? All these questions have to be addressed."
