Unpopular local developments can be opposed successfully, writes Liam Reid.
Gorey Showgrounds, Co Wexford
A plan to sell the 11-acre site near the centre of Gorey prompted a major local controversy five years ago, dividing political parties over its future. In 2001, the trustees of the park, which was donated to the public by the Land Commission in 1937, moved to get the land rezoned by the local county council, with a view to selling it off. The move was sparked by a a six-figure legal bill which dated back to the early 1990s, when the trustees were successfully sued by the tenants of the showgrounds, local soccer team Gorey Rangers, over its upkeep.
The rezoning move was initially supported by county councillors, two of whom were also trustees of the showgrounds. A local campaign was mounted against the rezoning, led by local town councillors, including Malcolm Byrne of Fianna Fáil, and in mid-2002 it finally succeeded in having the rezoning proposal reversed.
In 2004, locals began discussions with Wexford County Council to buy the grounds to secure their future as a public amenity, and negotiations are expected to conclude in the coming months.
People's Park, Limerick
It may be somewhat after the horse has bolted, but there is now considerable anger in Limerick over the construction of a luxury block of apartments on part of the People's Park, which was donated to the city by the Earl of Limerick in 1877.
The section of park where the block now stands had been held in trust under the terms of a 500-year lease agreed in 1877 by the Earl of Limerick, the trustees of the People's Park and Limerick Corporation.
However, lease restrictions were removed when the council paid €75,000 to the Earl of Limerick's estate and €75,000 to the trustees of the park for the freehold and leasehold respectively. Council officials then sold the park site, plus some land it already held in the area, to Reidy Civil Engineering for €1.57 million.
Local Progressive Democrat junior minister Tim O'Malley has now written to the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, seeking details of the transaction.
"The development is of no social or environmental benefit whatsoever, and the earl's astonishment at the turn of events is shared widely by the ordinary people of Limerick," he said earlier this month.
Dún Laoghaire Baths, Co Dublin
An ambitious €140-million plan to replace the derelict public Dún Laoghaire baths with a 10-storey retail and residential development met very stiff opposition from local residents and politicians because of its scale. The plan, which also included an indoor swimming and leisure complex and maritime park, was published early last year and almost immediately attracted serious criticism. Last summer a local campaign, Save Our Seafront, gathered momentum, with a number of large public marches against the proposed development. At a meeting last October, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, which owns the site, voted to re-examine a series of other proposals for the development, most of which are on a much more modest scale.
St Michael's Estate, Inchicore, Dublin
There was widespread approval when Dublin City Council announced plans in the late 1990s to have this, one of the most run-down and deprived local authority flat complexes in Dublin city, redeveloped. The plan for a redeveloped estate with just over 300 units was rejected, however, in 2003 by the Department of the Environment, which advised the council to adopt a public-private partnership approach to the site and to bring in private developers. In early 2004 the council came back with a new plan for 850 units, the majority of them to be private houses. In May the remaining tenants on the estate mounted a campaign, which soon gained the support of the wider community, resulting in Dublin city councillors overruling their executive planners and rejecting the plan.
Lough Muckno, Co Monaghan
Opposition to a housing development on county council lands near Castleblayney turned into one of the longest planning battles the State has seen. The saga began in the 1980s when Monaghan County Council took control of lands in the beauty spot of Lough Muckno outside the town, with an ambitious development plan to transform it into one of the top tourist attractions in the Border area with the creation of a high-quality caravan park there. The development failed utterly and by the mid-1990s it was costing the council nearly €250,000 a year to service the loans associated with the project.
In a bid to stem the losses, the council decided to lease the lands to a British property development company, Harinbrook Properties, to develop part of the site as a housing estate. The council also rezoned an amenity area owned by Coillte, which the British company wanted to transform into a golf course and holiday home development.
Such was the opposition from a local action group that one of its members succeeded in getting elected to the local town council. The group took a series of legal actions in an attempt to prevent planning permission being given to the development.
In 2002 the Circuit Court upheld a 1997 planning permission, and in January 2004 an appeal on the part of the residents was upheld by the High Court. Since then, further proceedings were initiated by Monaghan County Council, this time against the British company, alleging non-compliance with the lease. However, the company is demanding millions of euro in compensation.