Residents of a Dublin housing estate where a large new development is planned have claimed their submissions to the council have been “selectively redacted”.
Tuath Housing Association has applied to Dublin City Council for planning permission to build 463 new homes at Coultry in Ballymun, Dublin 9.
The planning application to Dublin City Council shows the scheme spans more than three hectares of land including the Coultry Road site, which held the former Ballymun flats before they were demolished in 2012.
The proposal comprises 190 one-bed homes, 226 two-beds and 47 three-beds in 10 blocks up to six storeys high. The development involves the demolition of four family homes: 62–65 Coultry Gardens, as well as two community gardens.
RM Block
The large-scale residential development (LRD) planning application was lodged with Dublin City Council on August 15th, meaning a decision is due by the middle of October.
Under planning legislation, members of the public have five weeks from the day an application was lodged to make observations on the development.
These observations are then published on the local authority’s website. The observations must be “based on planning considerations, not on personal likes, dislikes or grievances”, a guide from the Office of the Planning Regulator states.
However, a solicitor representing the residents of Coultry Gardens has alleged several of his clients’ observations published on the council’s website have been “selectively redacted”.
“Planning submissions and substantial observations have been redacted which ought not to have been,” Setanta Landers, of Setanta Solicitors said in a letter to the council on September 23rd.
One redaction that he points to as “particularly egregious” and an effort “to blunt or control the information in the appeal” is that of Coultry Gardens resident Gabriel Paisley.
“I am particularly vulnerable to environmental factors due to having recently undergone a lung transplant, leaving me with only one working lung. Any increase in dust, air pollution, or construction-related particulates poses a serious risk to my health and recovery,” Mr Paisley wrote in his submission.
This detail was redacted before being published on the council’s website.
Dublin City Council declined to comment on the redactions in response to queries from The Irish Times.
In Mr Landers’s submission on behalf of the residents, he wrote that there was a “concern that there is asbestos in the pipes in the hot press for the four homes that are proposed to be demolished” and that there was “no waste management plan for the proposed demolition of the four homes”.
This detail was redacted before being published on the council’s website. It has since been reinstated after Mr Landers submitted a complaint.
Multiple other redactions were made to Mr Landers’s submission and that of a resident.
They include the number of years each tenant has lived at Coultry Gardens, the suggestion that the four houses due to be demolished could be retained, and the fact that one resident who had been living in her home for 58 years found out about the plan to demolish her house through the erection of a site notice outside.
“While redactions to remove personal identifiers are a matter of course in planning files being uploaded to the public file, redactions of submissions and planning matters of substance are unprecedented in our experience.
“The scale and breadth of what appears to be selective redaction is of enormous concern,” Mr Landers said in his complaint to the council.
In response to questions from The Irish Times, Tuath Housing said it “understands concerns in relation to a number of homes affected by this development”. It said it would “engage with local residents to ensure that information is clear, concerns are heard, and the benefits of the development are understood”.
