RESIDENTS of Dublin's Ranelagh and Milltown areas have joined forces to fight a multistorey housing scheme which they fear will seal the fate of a large swathe of open green land extending from the Dodder to the heart of Ranelagh.
Many local residents and associations appeared at a Bord Pleanala oral hearing on plans by Park Developments Ltd to build 300 flats and 158 houses on the 12 acre grounds of Mount St Anne's, a convent and school acquired from the Sisters of Charity.
The scheme includes a large, crescent shaped six storey block - similar to the development on the former Johnson Mooney and O'Brien site in Ballsbridge - which one of the objectors. Mr Fergus O Tuama, characterised as Aras Ceaucescu".
Dublin Corporation granted planning permission for the scheme despite a unanimous recommendation by the city council's planning committee that it should be rejected as it would be out of keeping with existing houses.
The objectors include the Minister for Finance, Mr Quinn, a local TD. In a joint letter with his party colleague, councillor Mr Dermot Lacey, he said it was "one of the largest housing concentrations ever proposed for an inner urban area" and posed a "serious threat" to proper planning.
It is also being opposed by two adjoining schools, Alexandra College and Gonzaga College, both of which fear it would increase traffic problems in the area and leave their playing fields overlooked an unacceptable extent by residents of the blocks of flats.
"We would have to question the wisdom of having so many windows overlooking playing fields used by over 800 students," said Mr Derek MacLean the bursar of Mandia.
Father John Dunne, rector of Gonzaga, wants a 12 ft wall to screen its playing fields.
Mr John Houlihan, representing the Milltown Ranelagh Alliance of Residents Associations, told the hearing the area was "under siege by piecemeal development" as more and more land owned by religious orders was bought up by property interests.
There was no integrated plan for the area, he told the Bord Pleanala inspector, Mr Michael Walsh. Since the loss to housing of Shamrock Rovers ground at Glenmalure Park some years ago, sites were "falling like dominoes" to schemes which merely maximised their value.
All the corporation had produced was a "Milltown planning brief" in 1995, but this document, with its recommendation that new developments in the area should be a maximum of three storeys high - had no status and had come too late to have any impact on Mount St Anne's.
By comparison with other parts of Dublin, particularly the north side, Mr Houlihan said there was very little public open space in Milltown and Ranelagh just eight acres in three small parks at Belgrave Square, Ranelagh Gardens and Palmerston Park "and a few pieces along the Dodder".
Locals had been particularly alarmed by the erection of three blocks of flats on a site adjoining the Milltown railway viaduct because it had "destroyed the continuity of the open space" on the banks of the Dodder, which had long been earmarked as a future linear park.
Senator Joe Doyle (FG), chairman of the City Council's planning committee, said he was familiar with the area, having gone to school at Mount St Anne's. At the time, developing its land was so inconceivable that there would be "a better chance of building in St Stephen's Green".
Mr Michael McDowell TD (PD) said it was inevitable" that some development would take place on the site. His objection was to the scale and completely intrusive" nature of the present scheme in an area where most of the houses were two or three storeys.
Mr Brendan Gilmore said his house in Richmond Avenue South would be devalued by 15 per cent, according to Lisneys. He also believed the developers had "misled the corporation with inadequate and inaccurate information".
Mr Gerard Kavanagh, another resident of Richmond Avenue South, said people in the area were "horrified by the undemocratic action of the corporation in grating permission against the unanimous recommendation of democratically elected city councillors".
It was "outrageous" that unelected officials would permit six storey blocks of flats to be built in close proximity to two storey houses, he declared. No account had been taken of the value of the green spaces in the area, which were also a habitat for birds, foxes, squirrels and badgers.
The hearing continues today.
