KCA not to make Brennan's submission

by Brian Byrne

Kilcullen Community Action last night voted against making a submission on a planning application relating to Brennan's Hardware on Main Street.

The application, by Pat Dunlea and Donal Brennan, proposes a number of apartment blocks and shops on the property.

But at a meeting attended by some 30 people, all of whom were entitled to vote by virtue of turning up to the event, a proposal that KCA should not as an organisation make a submission or objection was carried by 15 to 5, while a counter proposal was lost when just 12 of the 30-odd present supported it.

The proposals came at the end of a sometimes heated discussion on the project, which would see the Brennans hardware and builders providers business move to the outskirts of Kilcullen.

The proposal includes the provision of some 61 apartments, a shopping street, and open pedestrian spaces on the land currently occupied by the hardware store and the extensive warehousing sheds and yards behind it.

Core to the argument was the long-standing KCA objection to the provision of four-storied buildings in the town. One of the blocks, at the rear of the development, has four stories in its design.

JJ Warren said that even though the block concerned was at the back and would not be visible from the street, it would 'create a precedent' that would be against the Development Plan that currently 'discourages' more than three stories in the town.

He also felt that there was no place for 'ultra-modern' shopping frontages in Kilcullen, quoting a national planners organisation to support his contention that shopfronts 'should be traditional'.

Environmentalist Kerstin Bartels-Shortt said the Brennans Development was 'not in keeping with' the Development Plan.

Niall McDonnell took a robust contrary view to such observations, saying that new developments in Kilcullen 'should represent 2005, not 1890'.

"Those wooden shopfronts that are being put up everywhere are simply fakes, and hard to maintain," he said.

Meeting chairman Noel Clare noted that developments 'could have a modern look' but could also keep 'elements of the streetscape'.

Esther Kiely said that the development as proposed 'doesn't blend with the streetscape'.

JJ Warren also echoed a previous contention that the apartment developments so far proposed for the town centre could house a population of 1,000 people 'of a lower social class' in rented accommodation.

"If you create a ghetto, you won't walk through it," he said.

Joe Kelly said they should remember how other villages had 'disappeared' under the scale of the developments which had occurred in them, including Clane, Leixlip and Clebridge.

"I think the scale of development proposed for Kilcullen is not right for the town," he said, adding that the infrastructure was not in place to support a high-density development.

Esther Kiely expressed her concerns about the 'transient' population that apartments bring, and said it could be a problem. Her suggestion was riposted by a man who described himself as a 'blow in' and opined that apartments may be the 'lifestyle of the future' of the 'permanant population'.

Eventually, Vivian Clarke put forward a proposal that, rather than have KCA put an objection to the application, the meeting should decide that individuals there would do so 'if they wanted to'.

JJ Warren put a counter proposal that KCA look at the development in terms of the 'four-storey aspect', traffic safety, density, the retention of 'Dublin House' (the retail building on the corner recently used temporarily by the Credit Union), and the impact on the street, and then make a submission

Noel Clare asked for a show of hands in favour of Vivian Clarke's proposal, and 15 people voted in favour.

Then he asked for support for JJ Warren's counter proposal and just 12 people raised their hands.

When Noel Clare declared Vivian Clarke's proposal carried, JJ Warren said the 'nays' should have been called for in each case.

In an ensuing discussion, Joe Kelly said the KCA had allowed itself to be 'gagged'. "I can't understand why a body like this can be voted down by sheer numbers of people who turned up," he said.

Eventually, on the basis that he didn't wish the vote to be subject to legal challenge, Noel Clare called for the 'nay' vote on the first proposal.

Just five voted against.

©2005 Brian Byrne.