Come Together - Housing Day of Action
We are meeting tomorrow afternoon at 1.15 at the field in front of Lidl.
We hope you can join us.
From there will be walking together to join with friends and neighbours in Dun Laoghaire who are gathering for a the ‘Day of Action on Housing’. We will be using this day to highlight 'Stop the Highrise' campaign and to show solidarity to the people who are being evicted from their homes in St Helens Court after the building was bought by an investment fund.
Our campaign to Stop The Highrise knows very well that build to rent development means that communities suffer, neighbourhoods suffer and in Dun Laoghaire we can see clearly how these faceless investment funds make the people who live in the buildings that they own, suffer too.
ENOUGH!
In all of the submissions to the Planning Authority, the comments left on our petition and the sheer number of people who have signed it, it is clear that in Sallynoggin and Glenageary we reject the Highrise, we reject the build to rent model and we favour affordable and social homes that are in keeping with the surroundings and developed strategically to meet the needs of our community and that this particular site, zoned ‘neighbourhood centre’ is treated as such and is not used by outsiders as an opportunity for profiteering to our detriment. We love our community, we love our neighbourhood and our environment, we care for each other and we stand together:
- For proper neighbourhood facilities in our site that is zoned Neighbourhood centre.
- For sustainable development and sustainable communities
- For the environment and to protect our surroundings for our wildlife, our wellbeing, our safety and our mental health
- For social and affordable housing for our community
- For a proper solution to the housing crisis
- For democracy in planning and for adherence to our county development plan.
- For an end to build to rent developments, greedy profiteering, overdevelopment and antisocial high-rise, high density buildings in our neighbourhoods.
We need to you come along tomorrow.
We know it is short notice, we know many people may have plans, BUT if you can make the time please join us at the field in front of Lidl at 1.15.
SPREAD THE WORD!
This is being organised at short notice because we only just found out about this national day of action. So please send out the call and spread the word:
To members of all of your What’s App groups
To your friends and neighbours
To the members of your Residents’ Associations
To your youth clubs and sports clubs.
To your local politicians and community leaders
To your schools and colleges
LET EVERBODY KNOW!
Come out to meet each other.
Come out to make new friendships and connections.
Come out to build social cohesion and strong community across our neighbourhoods.
Come out together to send a strong message that we are ready to take a stand and that we wont back down.
Everybody is welcome and everybody can join in
Bring Yourself!
Bring Your Friends!
Bring Your Family.
Bring your own Placards or Signs
Bring your voice, your music, your song and sense of justice, fairness and respect..
If it is too far for you to walk all the way to Dun Laoghaire then meet us there at St Helens Court. at 2 o'clock.
Finally! We stand for truth and accuracy in reporting.
We were horrified and disgusted at an article in the Irish Times yesterday that minimised and cherry picked the concerns of our community and gave a free rein to the Developer's Spokesperson and let them have the last word and published a serious of inaccurate, untrue, false and misleading statements which warped the views of our communities and painted the developer as a good guy trying to solve a housing crisis in the face of nimbyism.
We link the article here but it is may be pay walled: "some-80-objections-lodged-against-build-to-rent-scheme-in-glenageary"
We have written a ‘’letter to Editor’
They have not published it and most likely will not publish.
We are writing to the Irish Times newspaper demanding an immediate correction to those untrue statements and that in these circumstances that we are given a right to reply.
Our friends and neighbours whose Resident’s Associations were quoted in fact said much, much more than what was published by Irish Times who ignored the spirit and substance of their well thought out, well prepared and heartfelt genuine observations so we are publishing some of that here:
- “Our association welcomes all proposals for a suitable and sustainable development of this site”
Bellevue, Glenageary and Rochestown Residents Association. - “we agree with Lord Mayor Alison Gilliland’s recent comments that the over proliferation of Build To Rent developments does not provide high standard, sustainable housing.
Greythorn Park Residents Association
The Irish Times chose to kept these comments in the dark.
We will not stand over any inference that that our communities oppose an appropriate solution to the housing crisis, especially so when our position is exactly the opposite.
We encourage you to also send a letter to Editor lettersed@irishtimes.com and contact the Irish Times to demand that they adhere to the Press Councils Code of Conduct and to correct these inaccuracies immediately.
Further more we encourage you to register your concerns directly to the Press Ombudsman www.pressombudsman.ie.
You can read the letter we sent to the Editor HERE!
Dear Sir,
Apparently Planning consultant David Hughes believes that the development proposed by Red Rock Glenageary is ‘appropriate and accords with the national focus on development, in response to the housing crisis’.
Mr Hughes then makes a series of inaccurate statements.
- ‘that the scheme was located on residentially-zoned land’
In fact this site is zoned type M3 - District, neighbourhood centre. The local Authority zone is further described NC - To protect, provide for and-or improve mixed-use neighbourhood centre facilities. - ‘in an existing urban settlement’
In fact the location of this site is not an urban environment it is a suburban environment. Mr Hughes even contradicts his own statement when he refers to ‘the timely delivery of suburban housing on the site’ in his preceding quote in the very same report. - ‘and was adjacent to existing infrastructure and services.’
In fact the existing infrastructure and services do not support this development which is proposed to be plonked beside a roundabout flanked by a minor road to a housing estate and a single lane carriageway at an already dangerous junction. - ‘that the positioning of the nine-storey element had been arranged to offer maximum separation from any adjoining amenities, which could be considered sensitive.’
In fact, this nine-story ‘element’ is one of 4 blocks, squeezed into a field the size of a standard football pitch, and proposes a density (UPH) exceeding that of Manhattan while the entire development sits metres away from a row of single storey cottages, in a neighbourhood where many people are driven to despair and even tears by the insensitivity of their proposals. I will refrain from sharing with you where our communities would like them to position their development.
With so much debate on this issue, in particular whether putting future housing stock into the hands of faceless trust funds and floating it as commodity on the stock market, whether the abolition of local democracy where the Housing Minister’s ‘Specific Planning Policies Requirements’ corner An Bord Pleanala into granting permission in cases that grossly contravene County Development Plans and often fly in the face of even their own inspectors, is in fact an ‘appropriate’ response to the housing crisis or whether all of this is something we should be concerned about, your report is left crying out for balance and objectivity.
Your sincerely
Nicola Coleman
Stop the Highrise
Parnell Street
Sallynoggin
See you all tomorrow where will come together and create our own story.