A decision is imminent on whether Waterford's fine quayside is to be preserved intact for future development as a showpiece public amenity area, or to have a new bus station built on it.
An Bord Pleanala is expected to announce next week whether it approves or rejects Bus Eireann's plan to locate the city's main bus station on a section of the quays near Rice Bridge.
The board will rule on an appeal by environmental and civic groups against Waterford Corporation's decision last April to grant planning permission for the project.
The bus station controversy rivals Dublin's long-running Luas saga, in intensity if not in scale. Bus Eireann argues that convenient and central public transport facilities are essential for the city's tourism development.
Opponents, however, believe it is deeply inappropriate and will seriously damage the overall character of the South Quays and the aspiration to preserve them for recreation and amenity.
The mile-long quay has been regarded by many modern and historical authorities as Waterford's finest architectural and townscape feature, deserving of integrated and sensitive restoration as a riverside open space.
The Quay is the visitor's first visual introduction to Waterford, with up to 4,000 tourist vehicles a day passing along it in season.
Although it is sub-divided into sections under different ownership and is dotted with various unsightly sheds, car-parks and old port structures, there is a vision that it could be rehabilitated as a striking, landscaped civic amenity unrivalled in Europe.
A bus station there would limit the options and could prejudice future development by setting a precedent for other piecemeal developments on the city's most prominent site.
The Save the Quays Association (SQA) was set up earlier this year by a group of individual planners, architects, hoteliers and business people to oppose the bus station project and to promote the idea of developing the unified potential of the quays as the one outstanding architectural feature that is synonymous with Waterford as a city.
The SQA has expressed the fear that: "The opportunity for this distinctive urban feature of Waterford to achieve its full potential as an outstanding landmark and amenity for the city may be lost."
At an oral planning hearing in September the association's submission suggested that the corporation had come under pressure four years ago to agree to the bus station relocation, as the corporation was having difficult talks with CIE to acquire land vital for essential road realignment.
However, the elected members of Waterford City Council subsequently approved the relocation, on the recommendation of the city manager, in November 1993. The objective to provide the bus station on the quay was then included in the draft development plan.
City planners point to the absence of objections to the proposed relocation during the lengthy period of public display of the plans. But opponents of the project argue that the clause in question could not readily be interpreted, at that time, as a relocation to the quayside; that is, on the river side of the road rather than the other side. In 1979 the CIE bus station was in a building on the quay within the existing building line.
Given that the city development plan seems to embrace the location of the bus station on the quay, and leaving aside the apparent imprecision of the 1994 plan as regards the exact location, the objectors are now worried that An Bord Pleanala may take the simple view that the matter is already closed as the procedural proprieties were observed at local level.
But the SQA maintains that the full planning implications of the quayside location, including the possible adverse effects on traffic flow, were never evaluated properly. If next week's Bord Pleanala decision upholds the permission, the matter may still be appealed to the High Court.
The dispute on the procedural detail is tortuous and probably intractable. But those at the centre of the campaign to preserve the quays insist that an environmental impact statement should have been carried out, in order to permit examination of the primary and secondary consequences of the proposed development.
There are changes around Waterford Port which will have a bearing on this planning issue. With the gradual movement of most portal activity to the Belview Port facility a few miles away, the opportunity for much-needed revitalising of the quays on the other side of the river is opening up.
This would reinforce the case for an integrated development plan for both quays. Moreover, a second river crossing is now almost certain to begin construction in the early years of the new millennium, a badly needed development which will change the whole traffic and transport picture in the city.
At least six other sites have been identified by the SQA as suitable for a bus station. If Waterford and Bus Eireann push ahead with this project it may deprive the city, for many years to come, of the opportunity to transform its unique waterside environment in a manner befitting what was once internationally acclaimed as "the noblest quay in Europe".