Cork City Council has been accused of seeking to acquire 22 acres of prime development land through compulsory purchase order (CPO) after the lessors of the land had rejected an offer of €1.8 million to buy out their lease.
David Holland SC for the Munster Agricultural Society told an An Bord Pleanála hearing that his clients were concerned about Cork City Council's motivation for seeking to acquire the Cork Showgrounds in Ballintemple through a CPO.
The Cork Showgrounds have been leased from the council by the Munster Agricultural Society since 1892 and the society is currently just 19 years into a 99-year lease of the property, which is adjacent to Páirc Uí Chaoimh.
Mr Holland told yesterday's hearing that while the society is not the owner of the land and thus cannot develop it, it has a very valuable lease on the property which the council requires if it is to progress its plans.
Mr Holland said that the council had offered to buy out the lease in 2003 from the Munster Agricultural Society for €1.8 million, but accepting such an offer would effectively cripple the society as it could not get any comparable site near Cork city for that sum.
If the CPO was granted, Cork City Council would acquire a very valuable piece of property which would in time be adjacent to a thriving city centre as the docklands is developed and while it is zoned as public amenity, that could change, he said.
Pat Ledwidge, director of the Cork City Docklands Directorate, said the land would only be worth the fortune suggested by Mr Holland if it was rezoned and the council was coming to the hearing with "clean hands", intent on seeking to purchase the lease for public amenity.
If the council was, as Mr Holland suggested, intent on rezoning and developing amenity land, then it could have sought to have Fitzgerald Park rezoned, as being close to University College Cork, that would be worth much more than the showgrounds.
"My hope is that in 20 or 30 years time, people will look back and say that the city council had great foresight in developing this amenity [ the showgrounds] so close to a thriving city centre," Mr Ledwidge told the hearing chaired by Bord Pleanála inspector Michael Ward.
Mr Holland took issue with a suggestion by the council that the showgrounds are currently underutilised and said the council should not be basing its CPO application on such a premise when that was not the case.
He argued that while the society's primary objective was the staging of the Cork Show, it was wrong to suggest that hosting other events such as Funderland was at odds with the society's memorandum of association. The hearing continues on Tuesday.
