Traffic concerns over development

Kilcullen Community Action is to submit 'observations' on an new planning application for Riverside Manor, following an extensive discussion on the proposal at its recent meeting.



In particular, concerns about increased density and the effect on motor traffic into the centre of town will be raised, as well as a suggestion that the planners consider making provision for linking the development with a distributor road crossing Logstown Road and taking traffic back onto the Naas Road via Moanbane Park.



Worries were also voiced about an apparent 'pinching' of a riverside green belt from 14 metres to about 2.5 metres in width, if three houses (ringed below) on the new plan were built.



In what was occasionally a rather confusing discussion, with housing densitis and hectares being flung around like the proverbial snuff at a wake, the meeting heard that the new application has the potential to increase the total number of home units from an original 145 to about 185. And if a further section near the original entrance to the estate is developed later, this could rise to 230 units in total.

"This kind of extra density strengthens the argument that there should be access to the development via the Logstown Road," KCA chairman Kieran Forde said, adding that such a provision would 'alleviate' the group's concerns about all access being from the centre of town.



J J Warren said that any such provision would require a change in the proposed layout on the application, because a distributor road needs to be 7.2 metres and the proposal only allows for a 6-metre road, which would only service houses.

Responding to a comment that 'Kilcullen is getting too many houses, too fast' for the infrastructure, he said that the planners could put a rider on any permission that development couldn't proceed beyond a certain level until the required infrastructure was completed.

It was agreed that J J Warren would try and ascertain the true density of the proposed development prior to the submission of the observations.

— Brian Byrne.