Dublin City Council plans to rezone and sell off eight acres of green belt land at Dublin Bay in a deal likely to net in excess of €16 million for the city coffers. Olivia Kelly reports.
The city management is asking councillors to rezone an area known as the Alfie Byrne pitches in Fairview to industrial use from its current amenity use so it can be redeveloped as a business park. The site is currently in the council's ownership and is likely to fetch more than €2 million an acre if rezoned.
The land is located on the south side of the Alfie Byrne Road, which connects Clontarf and East Wall, and is on the opposite bank of the Tolka Estuary to East Point Business Park.
The management's proposal was put to councillors for the first time yesterday at a meeting of the council's North Central Area Committee. Management needs the sanction of the councillors before it can rezone and sell the land.
Fine Gael councillor Gerry Breen said he intended to oppose the plans. "I for one will oppose this and any seafront development that seals Dublin Bay away from the public," he said. "This is a further reduction of the small bit of sea facility available to the people of East Wall."
While the area manager, Philip Maguire, said the council intends to sell the land on the open market, Mr Breen said the plan was effectively a proposal to "bring the East Point Business Park across the Tolka River". He added that it made a nonsense of the Taoiseach's recent support for a Sutton to Sandycove cycleway.
Fine Gael councillor Naoise Ó Muirí raised a concern that the seafront land would be used for housing development. "Once development starts on that side of the road it will never stop," he said
However, Mr Maguire said the land was "totally unsuitable for housing" because it was "made up ground" and would contain too high a level of methane to be safe for residential use.
There was very little green space left in that area, Labour councillor Paddy Bourke said, and it would be "unjust and wrong" if councillors from the central area were not given an opportunity to comment on the proposal. Councillors voted to defer voting on the rezoning until it was put before the Central Area Committee.
Any rezoning proposal will also be put out to public consultation. Joe Nolan of Dublin Bay Watch said the organisation would be objecting to the plans. "There will be no green belt left," he said.