IN CLANE, councillors ignored official advice and decided to zone an additional 139 acres for housing, in response to lobbying from the landowners. This was done despite there being, within its boundaries, some 120 acres of residential zoned land which has yet to be developed.
Clane residents are vehemently opposed to the rezoning of so much land. About 1,600 of them amounting to 80 per cent of all adults signed a petition calling on the county council to reverse the decisions taken in private by its Clane Area Committee.
This followed a public meeting in the village last March, chaired by Mr Emmet Stagg, the local Labour TD and a Minister of State.
"The meeting was held in the face of the strongest opposition and the rallying of all types of sectional interest groups in an effort to prevent it taking place," said Mr Tony McEvoy, chairman of the organising committee.
The community council has written to the Minister for the Environment pointing out that Clane's population has almost doubled over the past five years.
"Facilities in the village are hugely overburdened the secondary school is seriously overcrowded, roads are clogged and in poor repair," it said in the letter.
"Clane needs time to absorb the current wave of population growth and plan properly for the future, yet the council's response is wholesale, unplanned rezoning," it declared. This made nonsense of the stated aim that development should "take place in a co-ordinated and orderly manner while at the same time conserving its intrinsic character".
Local people recognise the pressure for some new housing, but want this limited to 100 units. However, apart from making some minor amendments last week, the Clane Area Committee reaffirmed its major rezoning decisions.