MAYOR John Moran received strong criticism this week over a proposed multi-million euro commitment, from his discretionary mayoral fund, to purchase a 70-acre site in Patrickswell.
The lands, according to Limerick’s first citizen, will be used to build a new neighbourhood-led expansion of the village – “which we’ll soon have to start calling Patrickswell ‘town’,” he said.
In a recent press statement, Mayor Moran suggested that the 70-acre site could accommodate 1,000-1,500 new private and public homes for purchase and rent, as well as amenities for all of the village.
However, eyebrows were raised in the Council chamber this week by councillors who did not share his optimistic vision.
“Are you going to buy cattle or something?” Fine Gael councillor Stephen Keary inquired of Mayor Moran.
“At the moment there isn’t a whole pile of money in cattle, so you might be better off sowing spuds there. All of the directors will have to get on their wellington boots and gloves and go picking spuds because it is the only thing that will make money out there in the next couple of years.
“I’d say it would be good land to grow spuds,” Cllr Keary suggested.
The Adare-Rathkeale representative suggested that the site, a bold investment of circa €4million from Mayor Moran, was purely agricultural land with no zoning on most of it.
This is despite the for sale sign previously posted at the 70-acre site indicating that it had been zoned for enterprise, employment, and agriculture.
“You need to be very careful how you go about your masterplan that you don’t create a bloody ghetto, because it’s long enough Patrickswell was a ghetto with the imbalance of social housing versus private housing. You don’t want to reverse that kind of situation again,” Cllr Keary hit out.
Cllr Liam Galvin wanted to know what would happen if the land in Patrickswell was not suitable for housing.
“Irish Water might have a difficulty. More importantly the people inside the chamber might have a difficulty, because the right to zone is one of the few rights we have,” Cllr Galvin said.
Mayor Moran told councillors at Tuesday’s special meeting, which was held in relation to the mayoral fund, that he was having difficulty with the whole conversation around the purchase of land in Patrickswell.
“It is government policy to actually acquire land across the State and have it subsequently zoned for housing, and to capture the value uplift that comes from that,” he told councillors.
“I have been talking with Paschal (Donoghue, Finance Minister) and Jack (Chambers, Public Expenditure Minister) about this exact transaction and both of them are in agreement that this is actually a very good approach to take.”
The Mayor said that “as for buying land subject to planning permission and spending money in advance, again I could be wrong, but I seem to recall that there were commitments made to purchase the Opera Centre and to purchase Mungret College and there was no certainty that there would be planning permission on those at the time”.
“That decision was made, and I think it was the right decision.”
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
