Local Government Reporting – Letter to the Editor (SBP)
The Editor, The Sunday Business Post.
Dear Editor,
The article High Time for high-rise (Stephen Price, Agenda 11th January) more than anything highlighted the need for The Sunday Business Post to employ a Local Government Correspondent.
Now, I will leave it to others to defend “greedy builders” – I have no intention of doing so. I do believe however that in general the role of Councillors in the planning process has been seriously misrepresented in the media. Sadly, the emphasis has been on the few, who have facilitated shoddy development, rather than the majority of us who have tried to ensure good planning and sustainable development.
So, before The Sunday Business Post covers the issue of Planning in Dublin again it might bear in mind some facts. In my own area of Pembroke -Rathmines it was Councillors who successfully blocked the building of 110 apartments on a floodplain at Milltown when disgracefully the much lauded Planners justified it.
When the officials persisted and granted permission it was this Councillor, at considerable financial cost, who appealed that decision to An Bord Pleanala and have that permission reversed.
Similarly, in order to protect the few remaining green spaces in our City it was Councillors who persisted in introducing the new Z15 category zoning to protect over development of Institutional lands.
It was Councillors who amended the City Development Plan so that the flexibility previously allowing some limited residential development on Green spaces was removed following the elastic interpretation of that provision by the officials.
In recent months it has been Councillors who have persisted in defending the integrity of the City Development Plan when the officials used every trick in the book to facilitate over development in the Ballsbridge area.
I look forward to being “held to account” at the next Local Elections. Contrary to the notion asserted by Stephen Price I will not in the future, as I have not in the past, act in an “election fearing manner”. I hope that The Sunday Business Post will cover those elections in a serious and informed manner.
Yours sincerely,
Councillor Dermot Lacey
