www.communityvoice.ie - All the top news stories from Dublin 15

Council Chamber
by Peter Goulding

30kph proposed for residential estates

At a meeting of the full council in Swords, Cllr. Dennison (FG) called for the introduction of a 30kph speed limit in housing estates.

“I am not proposing the loony decision of Dublin City councillors to make main roads 30kph,” he was quick to point out, as the scribes sharpened their pencils. “At the moment, the minimum speed limit is 50kph and this is the speed at which we swing into our residential housing estates at.

“As there is no money in the kitty for speed ramps or other traffic calming measures, I would like to ask the council to consider creating 30kph zones.”

He then cited a photograph of a car on its side up against the front door of a house in Bealing Boulevard in Tyrrelstown. “This is a regular occurrence in this estate,” he said. “It happened at 2 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon when any child or adult could have been killed.”

In response, Cllr. Peter Coyle (Labour) remarked, with a somewhat patronising air, that this had all been proposed before and that there had already been pilot areas in parts of his area of Baldoyle and Portmarnock that had a reduced speed limit.

Cllr. Alan Farrell (FG) then proceeded to tap the nails into the coffin containing Cllr. Dennison’s proposals by saying that the speed limits in these pilot areas had been unenforceable because the requisite bye-laws hadn’t been brought into effect by the Council.

“In order to adopt the byelaws, we require the consent of the gardaí,” the manager said. “We propose to embark on a series of consultations with the gardaí on these matters.” Sadly, the rest of his message was obscured by the vast quantities of red tape that covered the chamber.

Cllr. Hamill’s shotgun nostalgia

The deplorable state of the old schoolhouse in Porterstown can be traced back to when the new owners took over the building, Cllr. Hamill (Labour) told the chamber. The old Porterstown schoolhouse

She was speaking on a question raised by her party colleague Cllr. Nulty on the state of the building and how it could be safeguarded.

“The previous owner sat there in his caravan with a weapon preventing people from crossing the land,” she said. “At least it cut out all the anti-social behaviour.”

The fact that the ownership of the site was in private hands made this a difficult case to pursue, Cllr. Nulty said. “Short of someone coming up with a lot of money, I don’t see there’s a lot we can do.”

In response, the manager said that the owner of the site had been contacted and advised about the development potential of the site. However, there was a question mark about whether it was marketable at this time.

Still, the building was listed and the council had served an endangerment notice on the owner of the building to prevent the building from falling into disrepair. The timeline for this had expired, she said, and the council was currently preparing a prosecution for non-compliance of the endangerment notice.

In addition, the council had already carried out work to safeguard the building and was actively seeking compensation for this, she said.

“The building must be restored and protected,” affirmed Cllr. Hamill. “The local residents are encountering serious anti-social behaviour in the schoolhouse and that can’t go on. At the end of the day, the owner has a responsibility to the community to protect the site.”

Cllr. O’Donovan (Lab) urged the council to find some use for the building. “It could become a coffee shop for a retirement complex or something like that,” he suggested. “Unless it is in viable use by the time the next development plan comes along, it will be gone.”

One storey cottages

Despite the best efforts of the manager, Cllr. Coppinger’s efforts to get the retention of the one storey cottages in Blanchardstown Village added to the Draft Development Plan proved successful at the full council meeting in Swords.

Cllr. Coppinger (Socialist) drew the councillor’s attention to the “startling” picture in last month’s Community Voice that highlighted the continuing destruction of these buildings. Demolished cottages on Main Street

“There has been a whole series of one-storey cottages pulled down in Blanchardstown, Clonsilla and Mulhuddart,” she told the Chamber. “And while I agree that not every cottage is of architectural merit, it seems to show a somewhat blasé attitude towards their preservation particularly in the Dublin 15 area.”

She went on to describe an “atrocity” that had been committed in Mulhuddart recently when the only building of merit in the village had been pulled down to be replaced with another “atrocity.”

Party colleague Cllr. Waine expressed his fears that the character of Blanchardstown could be undermined by leaving out reference to the one-storey cottages. Cllrs. Murray (FF), O’Donovan and Nulty (Lab) and Loftus (FG) all spoke in favour of the motion.

The manager was reluctant to specifically include the one-storey cottages in the draft report because it might pre-empt the findings of the Village Plan, he said. He called for an amendment to Cllr. Coppinger’s motion omitting the offending buildings.

However, Cllr. Coppinger refused to amend and her motion was accepted practically unanimously by the council.

Quinn building “an eyesore”

Fine Gael and the Socialist Party may have different perspectives on a lot of things but it came as a surprise in the chamber to hear them disagreeing on the aesthetic qualities of the local architecture.

The difference of opinion came about during the response to the Blanchardstown Village Plan, when Cllr. Waine remarked on the proposals to build four storey buildings alongside the existing single storey dwellings. “We have to try and protect the village character,” he said. “The Quinn building is an eyesore – we don’t want to recreate that.”

“On the contrary, I think that the Ebay and Quinn buildings are great,” responded Cllr. Dennison (FG) remarking that any company that could fill such large buildings with employees was to be lauded.

Springlawn access to remain closed

By far the majority of the 131 submissions made by the public to the somewhat wordy Blanchardstown Village Draft Urban Design Framework Plan related to the proposed opening up of an access point between Springlawn / Summerfield and the Town Centre, the manager said.

Practically all of these submissions were against the proposal, she continued. Not only did the responses show a fear of anti-social behaviour around the access points but there was also a danger that the estates could be used as overflow car parks at peak trading times.

As a result of the overwhelming opposition to the proposal, the recommendation had been made to remove the access from the plan, she announced.

This drew unanimous support from all sides of the Chamber. Cllr. Dennison (FG) said that he “suspected that the large number of submissions was down to the public meeting that Deputy Varadkar, Cllr. Loftus and I organised on this particular issue.”

Like a gold miner fearing a claim jump, Cllr. Murray (FF) said she would like to thank the planners “for taking my request for the Urban Village Strategy back in November 2007 and I’d also like to thank my partners in Fine Gael for thinking that it was such a good idea that they held a public meeting about it.”

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