Sir, - Frank McDonald's recently published book The Construction of Dublin raises the crucial question of whether our city will continue to develop along a European or American model. With the ink barely dry on the first edition, it seems clearer by the day that we could actually teach the Americans a lesson or two on how to create an unsustainable motorised state.
The Strategic Planning Guidelines for the greater Dublin area were meant to help stop the continued sprawl of the city into the rest of Leinster. As the article by your regional development correspondent (Property, July 27th) stated, the local authorities neighbouring Dublin seem to be happily ignoring the guidelines by continuing to approve new housing estates in designated green belt areas.
The guidelines were flawed in the first place, in that they accepted the further expansion of centres in the outer hinterland and the continued relative depopulation of Dublin City and its inner suburbs. An update of the guidelines in April this year shows that there are some 18,700 households either under construction or awaiting planning permission in counties Kildare, Wicklow and Meath, compared with 6,400 households at a similar stage of development in the Dublin Corporation area. These new country suburbs are invariably made up of detached, cul-de-sac estates which can never be serviced by public transport and are isolated from the traditional village centres where people can walk to local shops or other services. Recent research shows that such "Brookside" estates actually suffer worse levels of crime than more traditional terraced housing, where people look out on and after each other. We are condemning thousands of young householders to a life of endless driving, from estates where it will be very difficulty to develop a community spirit. House prices may not automatically rise to allow people to buy onto another step of the property ladder.
When we hear it said at the tribunal that Charles Haughey expected to make a nice return out of a development in Baldoyle, it is far from an academic or historical issue. Several generations will have to pay for the corruption in our planning process, as they sit in traffic jams leading out of estates designed for profit rather than for people. Perhaps the current Minister for the Environment could make some amends by pulling up the rogue local authorities who are eager to see their own patch being built upon, regardless of proper planning or environmental considerations. - Yours, etc.,
Cllr Eamon Ryan, Green Party, Ranelagh, Dublin 6.