Sir, – In her article “‘How dare you’: South Dublin residents vent at plan to redesignate golf amenities for housing,” (February 2nd) Olivia Kelly reports on the somewhat hysterical ( commentary on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council’s proposed rezoning of golf courses in Stepaside. While I do not share the grievances of those quoted, I have grave concerns about the creeping sprawl of development into DLR’s green belt and the foothills of the Dublin Mountains.
Despite DLR’s track record of exceeding its housing completion targets in recent years (helped in no small part by the profitability of residential property in the county), the authority has received from the Minister for Housing the highest percentage target increase of all four Dublin local authorities and a mandate to zone additional lands residential, regardless of the capacity of the currently zoned land.
The council’s automated analysis to identify lands suitable for zoning initially highlighted other golf courses, much closer to Dublin city centre than Stepaside, but these are not proposed for rezoning.
Although the principles of urban planning demand that high-density residential settlement be provided closest to the city centre, Dublin City and DLR councils have passed over golf courses much closer to the city, and DLR is zoning lands in the southern uplands of the county.
In the parallel universe of Irish planning, it seems that filling the city centre with office blocks and hotels is the order of the day while building apartment blocks in rural areas, where State agencies’ provision of schools, public transport and utilities is either lagging or lacking.
Neither Met Éireann nor local authorities can control the weather. All councils can do is arrange systems on the ground to provide the resilience and flexibility to mitigate the worst impacts of extreme weather. Converting permeable surfaces into impermeable ones greatly increases pluvial runoff and the risk of flooding.
At higher elevations, the impact of every roof, yard, pavement, access road and car park space constructed is even greater. Can our planning system manage this? – Yours, etc
Cllr JOHN HURLEY,
Social Democrats,
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council,
Dublin.
Sir, – On reading Olivia Kelly’s report on local dissatisfaction with a proposal by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to redesignate golf facilities for housing development, one resident said that unless the proposal was dropped he would not vote for any of the current councillors.
He said that he would be instructing his wife and kids not to also. Maybe said resident could be asked to explain how that works? I’d love to know. – Yours, etc
GERRY FOGARTY,
Castleknock,
Dublin 15.