Noonan will not intervene in rezone row

The Fine Gael leader, Mr Michael Noonan, says he will not intervene in a rezoning controversy in Kilkenny involving members of his party.

A decision to rezone a 12-acre site for industrial development, against the advice of Kilkenny County Council planners, has angered local residents and caused a split between city- and rural-based members of the council.

The developer, Mr Michael Lyng, proposes to build a car showroom on the site at Johnswell in the Pococke Valley, adjacent to the planned route of an extended ring road to the east of Kilkenny city. Mr Lyng is a member of Fine Gael.

Nine of the 13 councillors who voted for rezoning in the draft county development plan, due to be finalised next year, represent Fine Gael. The plan also received the support of one independent and three Fianna Fβil councillors.

The decision to rezone is "shameful" said city-based Fianna Fβil TD, Mr John McGuinness. His proposal that the council revisit the issue was unanimously adopted last week by Kilkenny Corporation.

The council received more than 30 submissions from local residents and the Johnswell Road Users' Group, which says it represents hundreds of local people opposed to the rezoning.

They want to preserve it as a green area for people living in one of Kilkenny's fastest growing suburbs and say that one of the city's most important Georgian buildings, Pococke House, is threatened by the prospect of adjacent commercial or industrial development.

A committee of councillors from the local area had recommended rejection of the rezoning proposal before it came before the full council earlier this month. The Johnswell road group asked Mr Noonan in a letter if he could explain why the nine Fine Gael councillors had chosen to over-ride the wishes of the area committee, council officials and the local community in the interests of a single developer.

In a reply sent this week, Mr Noonan said he does not get involved in the review of county and city development plans as he had no legal basis for doing so. It was for councillors to make these decisions at local level.

The group also asked if Mr Lyng was a contributor to the party. Mr Noonan said he had checked with the party's general secretary and was told Mr Lyng had never made a contribution at national level but had taken part in a Fine Gael golf classic in Kilkenny, to which he contributed £150.

Mr Lyng, who employs 25 people in Kilkenny, told The Irish Times he had no wish to become a "political football". The only political donations he had made were the £150 for a team at the Fine Gael golf classic and twice that for a similar Fianna Fβil event.

He had been trying to get a suitable site for his business for the past four years. He said local residents had been "pestered with petitions" against his proposal and he had been contacted by a number of local people who were supportive.

Although the site is on the outskirts of the city, it was mainly the votes of rural-based councillors which passed the rezoning. Only one city-based councillor, Fine Gael deputy Phil Hogan, supported it. He said it was "disgraceful" that Mr Lyng, a businessman "deeply immersed" in local community life, should have his name "muddied by innuendo and misinformation". The fact that Mr Lyng was a member of Fine Gael was "being championed in some quarters as a criminal offence".

Mr Hogan said Kilkenny Frozen Foods which operates from Pococke House, was already set up. He believed the most suitable sites for rezoning were those adjacent to infrastructure and at the edge of the city.

There was a danger that Mr Lyng, a significant employer who sponsored the Kilkenny under-21 hurling championship, would have to take his business to New Ross if he could not find a suitable site in Kilkenny, he said.

A spokesman for the council said officials had recommended against rezoning because the site was in an area where there was no tradition of industrial or warehouse development. There was also significant local opposition and there were other suitable sites for such development.