Talking Property: The 'development potential' attached to some suburban gardens may not be a good thing for the community at large, writes Joe Breen.

Don't you just love that term, "development potential", especially when discreetly displayed under a "for sale" or "auction" banner. If ever there was a euphemism that summed up modern Ireland then this is it. And the latest target of "development potential" is the humble garden to go by a recent report in Property in The Irish Times.

"Still," the report stated, "property is the preferred investment for many players with plenty of money chasing well located family homes, particularly if there is development potential . . . Corner sites are especially sought-after, as even the smallest corner garden will allow space for an extension while larger gardens can accommodate a new house . . . In the Dún Laoghaire Rathdown area no less then 20 per cent of all new housing is concentrated in corner sites."

So what kind of potential does this kind of development have? It has:

• the potential to create more housing eyesores out of verdant oases

• the potential to further concrete our living space

• the potential to unbalance the natural harmony between house and garden and between house and area

• the potential to make money - now you're talking . . .

When these sites were originally planned the garden was an integral part of the design. It was a luxury that could be afforded.

The finer houses were the ones with the most impressive gardens, long, sweeping, manicured lawns dotted with colourful, exotic plants, gazebos and elegant furniture. I know. I saw them from the top of the bus.

Gardens were also important for the new home-owning class in the post second World War era. They provided the proud first-time home-owners with the opportunity of planting trees, flowers, grass and sometimes even vegetables. Growing up in 1960s Glasnevin I can remember the vegetable patch at the end of the garden where my father had planted potatoes and rhubarb.

For many, the garden became an extension of themselves; some were extravagant, some minimalist, others were neat and tidy or wild and unkempt. But all added to the patchwork of elements that help make up a thriving neighbourhood, that give it a distinctive visual identity and personality. This was as true of Glasnevin and Clontarf as it was of Foxrock and Ballsbridge.

I live in Greystones, Co Wicklow, a community under constant threat from people with "development potential" on their agenda. A wander down the main street of Church Road shows the result of back gardens sacrificed to squeeze in new houses. It is not an edifying sight.

Both the beautifully elegant old homes and their more contemporary offspring are fatally compromised by their closeness.

An even more glaring example is a fine house on the Stillorgan dual-carriageway at the corner of the Leopardstown crossroads. This elegant home's expansive garden has been torn up to make way for apartments, leaving the house seem half naked without its natural green surrounds. Better to have razed the whole thing and be done with it.

This issue of houses with "development potential" yet again asks us: Have we lost the run of ourselves? Does anybody buy a home any more just to live in it? Are we to presume that every time a house with a decent garden is sold that it, in turn, will be divided and sold?

It seems more and more plausible that developers fill the increasing number of helicopter flights over south Dublin earmarking properties with "potential". And now that everyone is a developer, as with the six south Co Dublin neighbours on page 1 of this supplement, will we all start looking at our gardens less as a form of pleasure and more as a source of profit? It is a dismal thought.

There is, of course, a process which is meant to temper our rush to concrete our green heritage. But what passes for town planning in this country frequently leaves one dumbfounded. And so we are left at the mercy of the developer and his or her vision. But the only vision developers have these days is one with a euro sign in front of it.