Development of the land around Charlesland

Geraldine Carro

Can anyone tell me what is planned for the site to the left / back of Charlesland? Am heading to Wicklow County Council to check for sure, 'anyone have any ideas??

matt-dublin

left as you are looking down from the crescent or left if you are looking towards the crescent

Geraldine Carro

Left as you are looking towards the crescent

Mr Posh

Been down there to do the same thing, if the plans are still the same it looks like they plan to put three or four ugly warehouse type things there.
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The only problem is right over the wall from Charlesland development is what looks like loading bays which I imagine will be used for lorries and I'm hoping there will be no night deliveries. on the plus side if it goes ahead at least there will be plenty security behind there.

Plans where drawn up back in 2003 so god knows what they plan to do.

mikedragon32

There was talk a couple of years ago that the space to the Left of the Charlesland road (as you head away from Greystones), up to the apartment complex was zoned commercial with a view to having big warehouse type stores (woodies for example) in there.

Initially, I've been told, all of the area Charlesland is built on was supposed to be for AMD to build a Fabrication Plant along the lines of Intel in Leixlip, but they pulled out and the IDA (at the time) couldn't get anyone else to start up there because of the lack of infrastructure.

Sparks115

Apparently they have applied to change this land from zoned Commercial to Residential. I have my house backing onto this land and was told at the time of buying that it was definatley going to be commercial and now it looks like to me a few brown envelopes may be passed around so they can build large detatched and semi detached houses!!! hmmmmm am I suprised... no!!! am I happy... no!!! Can we lodge and objection I wonder if we are not happy with the new proposed buildings???

daveco23

INCH wrote:

Apparently they have applied to change this land from zoned Commercial to Residential. I have my house backing onto this land and was told at the time of buying that it was definatley going to be commercial and now it looks like to me a few brown envelopes may be passed around so they can build large detatched and semi detached houses!!! hmmmmm am I suprised... no!!! am I happy... no!!! Can we lodge and objection I wonder if we are not happy with the new proposed buildings???

Anyone know how to go about seeing the plans / lodging an objection? Pretty clueless when it comes to all this.

Bertie

Planning has been applied for and granted for 250 houses here there were a lot of stipulations such as money being given to the development of greystones itself new ramps and paving. The houses will comprise of 3 and 4 beds similar in style to eden gate .Go ahead --I hear construction will begin later this year or in the spring of next ---access will be on the round about at jackie Skellys. Also planning is being sought between the Fairways and jackie skellys the application notice is unusually placed at the end of the changing rooms next to the athletics arena.Expect a lot more Charlesland is a 10 to 15 year plan and we're only in year 3.:(Also Cosgraves have aplanning lodged for more housing on the Kilcoole side of the link road at Pretty Bush so it looks like Eden gate is going south

loyatemu

there will be development along the entire length of the link road within 10 years - that's why roads are built - to open up land for development. Look at the southern cross in bray, look at the M50.

according to Wicklow Co Co's (excellent) planning website the area to the south of charlesland is to be light commercial development, including a petrol station and warehouses (have a look at the GPS map). but i also read in the Bray People that Zapi have applied to change this to residential, so I expect it will be houses (once all the farm buildings have burnt down).

oh well, if more people move into the area maybe the pub will finally open!

Fiachra2

daveco23 wrote:

Anyone know how to go about seeing the plans / lodging an objection? Pretty clueless when it comes to all this.

The new development plan is availably in the town Council Offices in hard copy or on disk. It can also be printed from the WCC website. These plans are quite hard to follow so I suggest a few of you get together to look at them. You have a period of about 4 weeks to make a submission on the plan. Again I suggest a few of you get together to make a coherent submission. Watch out for one thing though. the plan as far as I am aware, does not include any provision for changes to zonings in your area. This will be done in a different way. After you have made your submission, when the final plan is being considered there will be a last minute proposal to rezone certain lands. This will come from George Jones, Derek Mitchell or Kathleen Kelleher. Alternativley they may be clever about it and get a Councillor from outside the area to propose the rezoning. Either way they will support it. To counter this you must do to things.
1 Make sure your submission gives reasons for not making any rezonings.
2 Write to the above councillors asking them to confirm that they will not support any rezonings.

In trying to protect your quality of life you will face a number of problems.

1 As recent arrivals/dubs/blowins you have -in the eyes of Greystones Town Councillors- absolutly no rights whatsoever in how the town is run. You are simply selfish people who having arrived in this lovely place want to keep it lobvely. How ridiculous! The above mentioned crew want to turn it into a small city as fast as possible and dont you dare stand in their way. One Charlesland resident, out campaiging about the marina was described by the Mayor of Greystones at a Council meeting as "a pass-remarkable blow in"
In any civilised society she would have to resign for that kind of insult but hey! this is Greystones.

2 There is a huge tract of land around you zoned for industry. This was done in 1999. Along with others, I tried to convince Councilors that there wasnt a prayer of industry coming to Greystones but to no avail. Naturally it suited the developer perfectly because he understood the economics of what was going to happen. He could appear to be preparing a nice developed plan with a mix of residential and employment and look very well. Of course he knew that 7 years later, with no sign of any industry, the Councillors would be ready to change the zoning to residential and he could get on with doing what he always planned to do. build more houses.

Dont be too negative about this. If you try hard and get a good group together you can actually win some of these battles. The local labour and Green councillors will support you. The main weapon you have is that the population is exploding way ahead of infrastructure and ahead of national population guidelines so any zoning changes are very bad planning.

NB as regards the pub opening with more people, if its another Script is that any real advantage?!! (Ok OK thats just me!)

daveco23

Thanks Fiachra - very informative..
Anyone up for this??

Sparks115

Hi Daveco23...Would definatley be on for have a meeting about this so would my Dad and Sister who also live here.I am sure there are plenty of people in Charlesland who are concerned about the future infrastructure of the area. We should try and organise a meeting soon to voice our concerns and put something together. If we can get a date together we could also out a notice up in Superquinn and see if others would be interested that are not on line.

Eoin

INCH wrote:

If we can get a date together we could also out a notice up in Superquinn and see if others would be interested that are not on line.

Remember to put on the link to this forum!
http://SayHi.To/Charlesland

Marcais

daveco23 wrote:

Thanks Fiachra - very informative..
Anyone up for this??

Daveco, I'll give you a shout sometime this week. Very p!ssed off having being sold my house on the basis there would NOT be housing behind me. Propose e-mailing councillors etc. to canvass their opinions, on the basis that they let us down on the Marina, there's an election around the corner and they may have a chance to do right (they don't of course )

mikedragon32

Please count me in for this also. I'll be phuqued if someone is going to refer to us as "blow-ins". There's not very many Natives in the town, the vast majority have come from elsewhere.

I'd even go one step further and seek to nominate someone for the next council elections, specifically targeting the Mayor for those remarks and seek the vote of the so-called Blow-ins. I'm sure there's enough new development in the Greystones area to be successful.

loyatemu

mikedragon32 wrote:

Please count me in for this also. I'll be phuqued if someone is going to refer to us as "blow-ins". There's not very many Natives in the town, the vast majority have come from elsewhere.

I'd even go one step further and seek to nominate someone for the next council elections, specifically targeting the Mayor for those remarks and seek the vote of the so-called Blow-ins. I'm sure there's enough new development in the Greystones area to be successful.

it'd be slightly ironic if you were appealing for all the people in the new developments to vote for you because you want to stop any further development.

specifically in relation to land around the old farmhouse - its currently zoned for light industrial - would you rather have a bunch of aluminium warehouses on the site, or more housing. I know which I'd prefer.

mikedragon32

loyatemu wrote:

it'd be slightly ironic if you were appealing for all the people in the new developments to vote for you because you want to stop any further development.

specifically in relation to land around the old farmhouse - its currently zoned for light industrial - would you rather have a bunch of aluminium warehouses on the site, or more housing. I know which I'd prefer.

Where did I mention an anti development platform?

Perhaps the councillors who are in situ at the moment need reminding that the blow-ins also have a vote and therefore a voice. I remember speaking to Dick Roche's wife before the last general election before we moved into Charlesland. Obviously she assumed because I was in the garden of a house in the Burnaby that I must therefore be one of the local WASPs.

She was totally flummoxed when I raised the issue of making sure that the land that the road was to be built on was cleared of illegal dumps and that the public transport & infrastructure planning in the future took into account the 1,400 homes in the current phase. Needless to say she made a quick exit. I asked had she any interest in the new residents who would be joining the community. She didn't answer.

If the new residents of Greystones want to be represented they need to make it known that they too have issues that need to be addressed. No doubt when the next elections for the Councils come about they won't hesitate in telling us how they got the pitches, courts, baseball diamond etc. for the community. If it wasn't for the new developments and the people who come to live in them, these facilities wouldn't exist.

I'm not opposed to new development, nor could I give a toss if there are houses or warehouses there, but if we have to seek permission to even add a conservatory from the developers (before we seek pp), then surely they should play ball too?

Bertie

Hear ~Hear ---
if everyone in Charlesland were registered to vote youd put a T.D. in the Dáil not to mind two councillors in W.C.C. and possibly hold a majority of town Cllrs on Greystones town council.The problem is that there is les than 100 registered when 3000 register the politicians will come screaming in to the place when there are damn all votes in an area nobody bothers much with it as it wont make a difference.There could be upwards of 5000 votes enough to put someone in dail eireann and put a useless politician or two on the dole;)

Plenty

mikedragon32 wrote:

Where did I mention an anti development platform?

Perhaps the councillors who are in situ at the moment need reminding that the blow-ins also have a vote and therefore a voice. I remember speaking to Dick Roche's wife before the last general election before we moved into Charlesland. Obviously she assumed because I was in the garden of a house in the Burnaby that I must therefore be one of the local WASPs.

She was totally flummoxed when I raised the issue of making sure that the land that the road was to be built on was cleared of illegal dumps and that the public transport & infrastructure planning in the future took into account the 1,400 homes in the current phase. Needless to say she made a quick exit. I asked had she any interest in the new residents who would be joining the community. She didn't answer.

If the new residents of Greystones want to be represented they need to make it known that they too have issues that need to be addressed. No doubt when the next elections for the Councils come about they won't hesitate in telling us how they got the pitches, courts, baseball diamond etc. for the community. If it wasn't for the new developments and the people who come to live in them, these facilities wouldn't exist.

I'm not opposed to new development, nor could I give a toss if there are houses or warehouses there, but if we have to seek permission to even add a conservatory from the developers (before we seek pp), then surely they should play ball too?

I am in the process of contacting a Greystones Councillor regarding this issue. I will let you know what their response is in due course.:)

loyatemu

mikedragon32 wrote:

Where did I mention an anti development platform?

apologies if i misrepresented you, the tone of this thread seems to be "no more development at Charlesland" which is a nice idea but not realistic. but yeah, we should definitely be campaigning to make sure the area gets the appropriate facilities to cope with the development that has happened so far and will happen in the future.

if anyone wants to start at the bottom - try writing to An Post and ask them to put a postbox in Charlesland - there's about 5 in the old Burnaby but none here.

mikedragon32

loyatemu wrote:

apologies if i misrepresented you, the tone of this thread seems to be "no more development at Charlesland" which is a nice idea but not realistic. but yeah, we should definitely be campaigning to make sure the area gets the appropriate facilities to cope with the development that has happened so far and will happen in the future.

if anyone wants to start at the bottom - try writing to An Post and ask them to put a postbox in Charlesland - there's about 5 in the old Burnaby but none here.

No apology needed!

Are there any estimates of just how many homes/people are expected in Charlesland by the end of the 10 year plan?

Plenty

As I mentioned in a previous post, here is the response I received:
"The land on the right hand side as you go up the dual carriageway, with Superquinn on the right hand side, is zoned for business.

Zapi Development (which is Ballymore Homes and Mountboork Homes together) would like a small parcel of land just behind Superquinn to be re-zoned residential. They would like to put large houses on the site, low density.

At the moment, the Local Area Plan for Greystones/Delgany 2006-2012 is being proposed. And it is worth having a look at it. It is available for viewing, and I think for sale, at Greystones Town Council offices, Mill Road, 2876694.

In the Local Area Plan, the zoning is still business. Zapi are saying they are having trouble getting businesses to come which is why they are asking for it be be re-zoned residential.

If you let me have a postal address, I will send you a map of Charlesland as it was proposed in the original planning application and then you can see all the zonings.

Yes, you will hear people criticise Charlesland, but I could see that once it got going it was a very nice place and from talking with people who live there they are very happy.

The developers have told us that 60% of the people living in Charlesland are from Wicklow, so a great deal of them are local people. There are a lot of young people there who grew up in Greystones.

Regardless of where you come from, you are perfectly entitled, and very much welcome, to have your views heard. And I will help you if I can. That doesn't mean that everyone gets their own way, but at least you can say what you want."

I hope this helps in some way:)

Fiachra2

Interesting and helpful reply Plenty however note a few things.

1.This Councillor is clearly supportive of the notion of the rezoning and so, as I predicted in my earlier post, the proposal to rezone wont be in the plan but will be added at the last minute.

2. "Zapi are saying they are having trouble getting businesses to come"
What a %***@ing revelation! when this Councillor voted to zone the land from agriculture. (On the advice of the same ZAPI) a 10 year old child could have told them that the industry wouldnt come. Now, rather than question the quality of the advice being given by Zapi or-dare I say it-question Zapi's motives, this councillor is happy to go along with their latest proposal!

3.It is of course a "small parcel of land" for "Low Density housing". All very palateable and designed to stop you from objecting too hard. Note how the wedge is driven in gently:
Step 1. Rezone from agriculture to industry (already done)
Step2. Rezone a little bit from industry to residential (in progress)
Step3. Having established a precedent at step 2, rezone the rest to residential at various densities.

Be afraid, be very afraid!

I notice that the councillor said your views were welcome. Remember that is correct so long as you dont object to the marina and I would safely bet that an objection from you wont stop this councilor supporting the above rezoning.

It is good to see that the councillor has established that you people are actually even "happy" Thats good as the rest of us were a little concerned. We can now cancel the the planned bread and circuses which were, quite frankly, going to be a it of a drain on the town budget.

Seriously, its a good idea to write and keep writing. Many existing residents -myself included-believe that Charlesland was too big and by increasing the population by about 30% was too much to suddenly. However the descision to build it was made by the existing council and you as residents availed of that descision. That does not preclude you from sharing the view and suggesting that future development be controlled tightly. If the scale of Charlesland was a mistake then that is a matter of fact, even if the view is expressed by someone who lives there rather than by one of us WASPS

Incidentally that councillor was involved in a campaign to stop Charlesland being built.

Good luck

MyPerfectCousin

So, "this councillor" "voted to zone the land from agriculture...On the advice of ...ZAPI", and was also "involved in a campaign to stop Charlesland being built"? How does that work?

Can you tell which councillor it is just by writing style, or do these contradictory facts apply to all of the incumbent councillors?

Marcais

loyatemu wrote:

it'd be slightly ironic if you were appealing for all the people in the new developments to vote for you because you want to stop any further development.

specifically in relation to land around the old farmhouse - its currently zoned for light industrial - would you rather have a bunch of aluminium warehouses on the site, or more housing. I know which I'd prefer.

Eh, no it wouldn't be ironic.

Speaking for me and 3 adajcent neighbours, we accepted that an office and business park was going to be built behind us and therefore we would not be overlooked by houses 20 feet away from our back windows.

That taken care of! OUR next step is to get Charleland Residents Association underway. We are looking at trying to get Puroga creche some night next week to have a meeting, discuss issues such as this, propose a committee (hate that word!) and go from there. A Residents Association will hold more weight in addressing all relevant issues.

I've Wednesday 31st May in mind 8:00 pm in Puroga Creche (adjacent to Superquinn) Daveco is looking to see if we can get Puroga.

ps. I agree with Fiachra re. Script!

Eoin

Marcais wrote:

That taken care of! OUR next step is to get Charleland Residents Association underway. We are looking at trying to get Puroga creche some night next week to have a meeting, discuss issues such as this, propose a committee (hate that word!) and go from there. A Residents Association will hold more weight in addressing all relevant issues.

I've Wednesday 31st May in mind 8:00 pm in Puroga Creche (adjacent to Superquinn) Daveco is looking to see if we can get Puroga.

You might update the residents association thread if you get something organised? Or start a new thread, and I'll set it as the new "sticky" res-assoc thread.

Eoin

daveco23

Had a word with my father (Works in industrial construction) and said there were rumours afoot that they were looking to rezone to residential all right.
Now, low density res is fine, but want to make sure that a four story "Fairways" replica is not going to be looking in at me when I`m having my morning coffee.. Will be calling County council on Friday to go have a look at the plans sometime next week, and see at what stage this rezoning is at.

Fiachra2

MyPerfectCousin wrote:

So, "this councillor" "voted to zone the land from agriculture...On the advice of ...ZAPI", and was also "involved in a campaign to stop Charlesland being built"? How does that work?

Can you tell which councillor it is just by writing style, or do these contradictory facts apply to all of the incumbent councillors?

Iv been involved in local politics for about 10 years and was on the council for 3 of them so yes I can identify the writing style.

The Council originally zoned for 800 houses in Charlesland in 1999. There was already a large tract of land owned by the IDA intended for industrial purposes. This would be the land on your right as you come to the main road at the Burnaby estate. They decided to zone more land for industry at the same time as zoning for the 800 houses. We argued that, if the IDA couldnt find tenants for their land, what was the point of zoning more. This councillor along with all the others rejected our views and insisted that there would be no problem finding tenants.

Having agreed the industrial zoning. This friendly ZAPI then raised two fingers ant the council and applied for 1500 houses instead of 800 They got this on appeal from An Bord Pleanala. This councillor and nearly all others opposed the granting of the 1500 houses and campaigned against it.

Now Im sure you are thinking "well if I was a councillor and ZAPI did that to me I would never entertain them again". Well thats not the way it works. Having been been dumped on by ZAPI these councillors are now happy to help them with their long term which is to build houses on the land zoned for industry.

I realise this all sounds a bit bizarre. Just sit through a council meeting some time and you willl begin to get the picture. Marcais can probably back me up on this. He has seen them in action.

Incidentally if you want the names of Councillors who will actually work-or try to work- in your interest let me know and I can direct you to them.

Marcais

Bertie wrote:

Hear ~Hear ---
if everyone in Charlesland were registered to vote youd put a T.D. in the Dáil not to mind two councillors in W.C.C. and possibly hold a majority of town Cllrs on Greystones town council.The problem is that there is les than 100 registered when 3000 register the politicians will come screaming in to the place when there are damn all votes in an area nobody bothers much with it as it wont make a difference.There could be upwards of 5000 votes enough to put someone in dail eireann and put a useless politician or two on the dole;)

Now you're talking!!! Or how about running a Greystones Mayoral candidate as a stepping stone, as a member of the BIPRP...Blow Ins Pass Remarkable Party

Sparks115

Marcais...thats a brilliant idea....I think YOU could give that silly Greystones Mayor a run for her money. We certainly dont need people with her attitude in positions of power:rolleyes: (well whatever u call being a mayor of a seaside town)

eleMental

Hi All - Just wondering - Is the proposed Residents Association meeting still going ahead this Wednesday at 8pm in Puroga?