Milltown Housing Scheme

Sir, - We have already set out on this page (April 21st) our concerns over the second application for a housing development at…

Sir, - We have already set out on this page (April 21st) our concerns over the second application for a housing development at St Anne's, Milltown. In a footnote appended to that letter by your Property Editor, Jack Fagan, he says I got some figures wrong.

It is a question of how one considers what the developer applied for and what was approved by the Planning Department in both applications. My letter refers to the approved figures, not those applied for by the developer. This was in response to Mr Fagan's original article, the heading of which used the word "approval".

On that basis I showed that there was an increase in approved density in the main c.16-acre parkland site which is the most controversial part of the project. Nowhere did I "make the mistake" of suggesting that a higher density is being sought in the total (c.18-acre) site in the revised scheme as Mr Fagan is led to believe.

I did challenge the statement that the developer had "opted for a lower density". There was no question of "opting", I believe. The developer had no choice in the matter. The higher figure first applied for (28.2 units per acre), was rejected at all stages in the planning process. The figure approved by the Planning Department at that time was c.25.6, and this clearly was used as the reference this time as the figure applied for was 25.5. (That in turn has been reduced to 25.3 on conditions laid down by the Corporation.)

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It should not go unsaid that the 25 figure is viewed as much too high for the St Anne's site and the Alliance is appealing that and other aspects of this second application which was granted permission by the Planning Department. - Yours, etc.,

Ted O'Keeffe

Chairman, Milltown and Ranelagh Alliance of Residents' Associations, Sandford Road, Dublin 6.