How can I object to council decision?

lalipule

Please move this treat to a different one in case it is the wrong one.
I live in the apartment block, where we have some empty retail units. We were informed that council decided to rent them for a purpose if a mental health day care.
As an apartment owner do I have anything to say? Can I raise my concerns and if yes what would you suggest?
I’m not saying I’m against the concept as such but not sure what to expect when such facilities are provided in a residential area?
Does anyone have any experience with such facilities? They are to be opened from 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week, would you know what is the official “night time”?
Should I be concerned at all?

Thank you

0xzmro3n4y7lb5

lalipule wrote: »

Please move this treat to a different one in case it is the wrong one.
I live in the apartment block, where we have some empty retail units. We were informed that council decided to rent them for a purpose if a mental health day care.
As an apartment owner do I have anything to say? Can I raise my concerns and if yes what would you suggest?
I’m not saying I’m against the concept as such but not sure what to expect when such facilities are provided in a residential area?
Does anyone have any experience with such facilities? They are to be opened from 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week, would you know what is the official “night time”?
Should I be concerned at all?

Thank you

Please don’t object out of fear. We desperately need these facilities. Most mental health day services will be quiet and I’d imagine quieter than if a restaurant with outdoor smoking area was opened till 12am.

lalipule

Lillie Happy Campground wrote: »

Please don’t object out of fear. We desperately need these facilities. Most mental health day services will be quiet and I’d imagine quieter than if a restaurant with outdoor smoking area was opened till 12am.

Do you have any experience with such facilities?
And if yes would you know what does the “care” (sorry have no better word to ask the question) entails?

antoinolachtnai

lalipule wrote: »

Do you have any experience with such facilities?
And if yes would you know what does the “care” (sorry have no better word to ask the question) entails?

You have nothing to worry about. There is a facility like this on Haddington Road (might be closed, been there decades) and another in Inchicore. People come and meet their doctor and get their prescriptions renewed. It’s a lot less disruptive than a pub.

There could be some sort of training or occupational therapy centre too. If so it will look a lot like any other training centre you have ever seen.

There could be a planning issue but if there is the local authority will certainly be able to resolve it though you would have an opportunity to object. If there is no planning issue you could object to the rental by judicial review. Either way I don’t fancy your chances.

If you are concerned about this I would approach the prospective tenant (HSE or local hospital presumably) in the first instance and ask them for more information about what will be involved.

imfml

No experience of this but maybe speak to a local county councilor or somebody running in the election, politicians are usually well informed on these things

Gumbo

Is there a current planning application for the change of use?

maxsmum

It's an outpatients clinic same as a VHI swiftcare. The patients are generally stable and coming for review or prescriptions or bloods etc. Don't be worrying. Living beside a District Court or a Garda station would be more scandalising I promise you!

LuckyLloyd

kceire wrote: »

Is there a current planning application for the change of use?

Find this out. If there is you can lodge an objection, should you wish to do so.

DellyBelly

lalipule wrote: »

Please move this treat to a different one in case it is the wrong one.
I live in the apartment block, where we have some empty retail units. We were informed that council decided to rent them for a purpose if a mental health day care.
As an apartment owner do I have anything to say? Can I raise my concerns and if yes what would you suggest?
I’m not saying I’m against the concept as such but not sure what to expect when such facilities are provided in a residential area?
Does anyone have any experience with such facilities? They are to be opened from 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week, would you know what is the official “night time”?
Should I be concerned at all?

Thank you

I think you should be concerned to be honest,. YOu'd never know what kind of person might turn up around your area. And the fact they will be open until 8pm especially in winter is very concerning. I'd be objecting to this big time if I were you...

JustAThought

you can object if they have been granted change if use from retail to mental health care units but check how they did this? Was there a sign for planning permission up? Did you object in the first instance and was this taken into account? Was there any kind of public consultation & how was this notified and done? I would imagine this would certainly have an impact on your propertys value but personally ai would also be concerned about what kind of patients would be in& out particularly the frequency of drug addiction and alcohol abuse with depression/mental health issues. You certainly dont want a drop in centre for drug addicts or recovering junkies.

i’ d trot down to your localcounty council office and ask about planning permissions & consultations & edge it in that way rather that ask outright initially. You also need to see if your neighbours are onboard to lodge objections also. This is certainly not the kind of environment I would choose to rent in or want my family living in or potentially exposed to.

Plus issues around parking -for staff and traffic and flow of users about the building . my neighbour wanted to open a creche and we got it stopped based on the lack of suitable parking for staff and disruption to the area with drop off’s and traffic noise and pollution. I cant imagine there was a CPO for strategic use on this appartment block?

Xterminator

Hi OP

objecting out of ignorance or fear is not a good basis. "i don't like the sound of it" isn't valid grounds. Standing outside of your country council off with signs saying 'down with that sort of thing' comes to mind.

so the 1st thing to do is educate yourself to what is proposed. By all means contact you local counsellors, and speak with your neighbours. Learn exactly what is proposed, and any planning process etc, deadlines and appeal procedures. I do have to say there is a still a lot of stigma facing people in this country with mental health issues - i do hope your grounds are not for objecting are not based on perpetuating some of those myths.

Quantify what it is you are opposed to, and any valid grounds for this objection. follow the process.

Johnny Sausage

NIMBYism

Mrs OBumble

DellyBelly wrote: »

I think you should be concerned to be honest,. YOu'd never know what kind of person might turn up around your area. And the fact they will be open until 8pm especially in winter is very concerning. I'd be objecting to this big time if I were you...

You'd never know what sort of person might turn up if the unit was being used as a shop.

Always Tired

DellyBelly wrote: »

I think you should be concerned to be honest,. YOu'd never know what kind of person might turn up around your area. And the fact they will be open until 8pm especially in winter is very concerning. I'd be objecting to this big time if I were you...

Absolute nonsense. You'd never know who might turn up anywhere at any time. And it's surely the people who aren't getting any help that would be more of a concern than those engaging with the mental health service.

Where do you think these people should be sent, out of curiosity? A deserted island perhaps?

lalipule

Dear All,

I greatly appreciate all your answers. It gives me a lot to think about and allowed me to gather some more information I might need for the meeting with HSE and council representative next week. I hope I will have the opportunity to ask the questions to understand what is being proposed.
Personally the only issue I have is the opening time, which is 8am to 8pm, 7 days a week. I was under the impression that the "house rules" should be obeyed. In case of our residential block the rules are 9am to 12pm. So I would assume that the opening time of the new facilities should reflect that?

Again thank you all for your posts.

DellyBelly

Always Tired wrote: »

Absolute nonsense. You'd never know who might turn up anywhere at any time. And it's surely the people who aren't getting any help that would be more of a concern than those engaging with the mental health service.

Where do you think these people should be sent, out of curiosity? A deserted island perhaps?

Yes that is true nutters can turn up anywhere and at anytime. However if the place is for people who have mental illness then you are guaranteed the people who are around this persons apartment will be suffering issues and may be dangerous..

I'd be objecting if I was the OP...

Samuel T. Cogley

If they're willing to put an injection room on the doorstep of a school I'd say you've very little hope of getting this stopped op.

TheBoyConor

It would almost certainly negatively affect the value of your property. prospective buyers would be very put off a property by the fact that there would be an asylum operating nearby. i'd also be very wary of the sort of characters that might be frequenting the centre. They might be coming from outside the area. I'd also be very concerned if any of these persons were in the area when there would be children out playing on the greens.
There could also be problems with parking and increased traffic.
Is there a residents association within the block or the neighbourhood? You could go to the residents association meeting and request a meeting with a local councillor or TD and go about objecting to it.
if there was planning granted for it you still might be able to get it stopped by having a judicial review of the planning process for it. If any of the correct procedures around planning notices and timescales were't done to the letter of the law it would invalidate their planning consent and they would be forced to defer and reapply and then you could lodge objections to the project then.

maxsmum

Are you people for real? Nutters? Asylum?
Jesus christ.
The only post here that is grounded in reality is the one about a newsagent being more disruptive.
Source- I'VE WORKED IN ONE OF THESE CLINICS FOR 4 YEARS

maxsmum

DellyBelly wrote: »

Yes that is true nutters can turn up anywhere and at anytime. However if the place is for people who have mental illness then you are guaranteed the people who are around this persons apartment will be suffering issues and may be dangerous..

I'd be objecting if I was the OP...

The 'dangerous ones' don't tend to show up to clinic for their scripts and cup of tea. If someone is dangerously unwell they've been nowhere near a clinic in 3 months in my experience.
The public perception of mental illness is so bizarre.

Graces7

maxsmum wrote: »

The 'dangerous ones' don't tend to show up to clinic for their scripts and cup of tea. If someone is dangerously unwell they've been nowhere near a clinic in 3 months in my experience.
The public perception of mental illness is so bizarre.

Thank you

In a very real sense, mental illness is the new leprosy. Some of these posts are .. words fail. Shocking. Have people no trust in the folk like you? Most who have mental health problems and need support are just like you and me, ordinary folk with a painful and treatable health problem .

05eaftqbrs9jlh

Objecting to a mental health facility is absolutely scandalous. I pity the OP, in a small way, because they're clearly very limited in their life experience. If they have nobody in their network of friends and family who has mental health issues, it must be a bizarrely small pool of people. Or maybe people just don't want to open up to somebody who would think like this about people who are having a hard time coping. It's an extremely problematic, callous attitude which will see the person themselves suffering deeply when their life inevitably gets complicated and they find there is nobody they can turn to for help.

maxsmum

I think a lot of the posters here are erroneously mixing up a community outpatient clinic with the Central Mental Hospital or Mountjoy. I'm hoping it's innocent ignorance rather than a genuine fear of the 10-15% of Joe Soaps like them who go to the doctor with anxiety or depression or some other chronic mental illness.

lozenges

Absolutely. People with mental health difficulties are no more violent or dangerous than anyone else (except sometimes, in tragic circumstances, to themselves).

Implying that anyone and everyone with a mental health diagnosis is a danger and potentially a risk to children is narrow-minded, ignorant scaremongering. Nothing else.

Gumbo

TheBoyConor wrote: »

It would almost certainly negatively affect the value of your property. prospective buyers would be very put off a property by the fact that there would be an asylum operating nearby. i'd also be very wary of the sort of characters that might be frequenting the centre. They might be coming from outside the area. I'd also be very concerned if any of these persons were in the area when there would be children out playing on the greens.
There could also be problems with parking and increased traffic.
Is there a residents association within the block or the neighbourhood? You could go to the residents association meeting and request a meeting with a local councillor or TD and go about objecting to it.
if there was planning granted for it you still might be able to get it stopped by having a judicial review of the planning process for it. If any of the correct procedures around planning notices and timescales were't done to the letter of the law it would invalidate their planning consent and they would be forced to defer and reapply and then you could lodge objections to the project then.

So much wrong with this post.

Aside from the fear factor of use age and demographic of users, I’ll stick to the facts.

You cannot later a planning application now based on info around site notices or newspaper notices that are in the past and already passed through the validation process.

Nothing now will invalidate their planning and nothing will force them back into the planning process based on what you’ve posted.

Also, to go to an board Pleanála you would having to have lodged an observation already. Only way around that is if you are an adjoining land owner.

Notmything

DellyBelly wrote: »

Yes that is true nutters can turn up anywhere and at anytime. However if the place is for people who have mental illness then you are guaranteed the people who are around this persons apartment will be suffering issues and may be dangerous..

I'd be objecting if I was the OP...

I would be pretty certain you interact with people everyday who have "mental Illness" do you avoid them because they might be dangerous?

CrabRevolution

maxsmum wrote: »

Are you people for real? Nutters? Asylum?
Jesus christ.
The only post here that is grounded in reality is the one about a newsagent being more disruptive.
Source- I'VE WORKED IN ONE OF THESE CLINICS FOR 4 YEARS

I've worked in various regional hospitals containing Mental Health units and that's my experience too. These were small units so like the one proposed in the OP wouldn't be getting any patients who posed a threat to the public. Generally the Mental Health unit was the quietest in the hospital.

It'll be patients meeting their doctors for checkups and prescriptions, not deranged lunatics in straitjackets and padded cells.

silver2020

DellyBelly wrote: »

I think you should be concerned to be honest,. YOu'd never know what kind of person might turn up around your area. And the fact they will be open until 8pm especially in winter is very concerning. I'd be objecting to this big time if I were you...

Now that is utter ignorance.

I suggest you learn about mental heath and after care - you might become a nicer person.

Graces7

CrabRevolution wrote: »

I've worked in various regional hospitals containing Mental Health units and that's my experience too. These were small units so like the one proposed in the OP wouldn't be getting any patients who posed a threat to the public. Generally the Mental Health unit was the quietest in the hospital.

It'll be patients meeting their doctors for checkups and prescriptions, not deranged lunatics in straitjackets and padded cells.

Indeed yes. People with eg depression and anxiety are deeply quiet as they are struggling with mental pain.

Mrs OBumble

Thinking some more about it: a convenience store is likely to be a lot worse. Teens loitering to find people to by drink for them. Armed robbers. Delivery trucks outside opening hours.

skooterblue2

Imagine if it was a methadone clinic/wet room? Then you would have a reason to complain.