The proposed development of 416 houses in the unspoiled Liffeyside village of Ballymore Eustace could have devastating environmental consequences, regardless of plans for a modern sewage plant, a Bord Pleanala hearing was told yesterday.
"Ballymore Eustace is unique on the Liffey in that if no compensation water is released, then no dilution of the sewage effluent can be achieved," Mr Thomas Deegan said, appearing on behalf of the Ballymore Eustace Trout and Salmon Anglers' Association.
"All other towns and villages have the benefit of stream and river tributaries giving some measure of dilution, to ensure that the fish have sufficient oxygen."
Mr Deegan was giving evidence to the planning board in relation to a revised planning application by Abbeydrive Developments, which originally had sought permission to build 507 houses, amid a strong wave of protest from local residents, TDs and councillors in the area.
The result of the appeal, seen as pivotal for future planning in Leinster in response to Dublin's population boom, is expected to be known on or before September 2nd, according to An Bord Pleanala.
The fresh application lodged with Kildare County Council, meant the objections to the plan had to be replicated.
In support of his argument, Mr Deegan accused Kildare County Council of ignoring the 1936 Liffey Reservoir Act.
Crucial to that Act was the role of the ESB in regulating lake reservoir sluices in the Ballymore Eustace area.
The legislation provided that the ESB could use the water for power development so long as it was not below "low-water level".
"Below the statutory minimum level, the Bord may not use the waters for generation purposes but may, at its own discretion, discharge up to 1.5 cubic metres of water per second, averaged over a week," according to the legislation.
This meant, said Mr Deegan, that neither Kildare County Council nor Abbeydrive Developments could guarantee a minimum dilution of the sewage effluent from the proposed development.
This, he insisted, would wipe out the entire fishery amenity in the immediate area because fish could not live in the effluent even of a state-of-the-art treatment plant.
Strong oral submissions were made by two former ministers against the proposed development, Mr Alan Dukes of Fine Gael and Mr Emmet Stagg of Labour, as well as a Labour TD, Mr Jack Wall, and two Kildare councillors, Mr Timmy Conway and Ms Mary Glennon.
An architect, Mr Diarmuid Herlihy, on behalf of the developers, said the original plans had provided for a total of 509 houses on a 62.5-acre site, at Ballymore Eustace West and Broadlea Commons, with access from two points off the main thoroughfares.
The plan had been revised to 416 houses following a request for additional information from the local authority. Provision by the council for an element of "social housing" was acceded to and the site was reduced to 59.5 acres.
Some regard was also paid to local needs in relation to the provision of "additional facilities", said Mr Herlihy, "for example, Montessori facilities, four suites of medical rooms, a library and a social services centre".
In addition, it was planned to include "half a dozen lock-up shops to cater for local requirements".
Mr Alan Dukes said, however, he was not impressed with talk of Montessori facilities, medical centres etc, "as an afterthought to a major housing development".
What was being proposed, he said, was a "village locked inside a village but without the facilities of a village that grows organically."
It was little more than an accretion of developments for a village that was patently not capable of absorbing expansion on this scale.
"On a personal note, I see it as a major departure in planning action in this county to locate a Dublin city ghetto in the depths of a rural village," said Mr Dukes.
Mr Stagg also objected strenuously to the location of a "chunk of city population" in rural Kildare.
The houses were to be in the £170,000-£200,000 price range, he said, with some as high as £250,000: "People on middle incomes like a TD could not afford to buy one if the current mortgage regulations on salaries are applied."
A planning consultant, Mr Frank Benson, for Abbeydrive, said the claim that the planning authority envisaged low-density development per se was both uninformative and inaccurate.
The original scenario, he argued, related directly to the existing sewage facilities.
A planned new sewage treatment centre would enable housing densities in Ballymore Eustace to be placed on a par with other Kildare villages such as Sallins, Clane and Johnstown, where the accepted norm was eight houses per acre. Abbeydrive's proposal was for no more than seven.
In response to an assertion from Mr Noel Sheridan, town planner for the Dublin Transport Office, that the planning application should fail because it did not fulfil the criteria for population dispersal in the conurbation based on reduced car usage, Mr Benson argued that it would be possible for a high proportion of the new population to find jobs in the Naas-Newbridge-Kilcullen industrial triangle.