A councillor calls for a crackdown on businesses operating without the right planning permission at Coolmine Industrial Estate

On 19 January at around 5.20pm, Andreea Canciu was inside her food truck, carefully wrapping an order of fresh fish.

Her mobile food unit, International Fresh Fish, offers all kinds of catch, whole and fillets of salmon, lobsters, octopus, oysters, and big fat shrimp.

She chatted casually with the customer waiting patiently on the other side of the open hatch, out on the footpath.

At this time of day, there can be a stream of customers swinging by the Coolmine Industrial Estate on their way home for the day, Canciu says. Most come in the mornings though, she says.

During lulls, Canciu starts to clean the place and ready herself for hometime.

Canciu’s fish kiosk is one of three food kiosks that live in a car park outside a carpet and flooring supplier in the industrial estate.

All of them, though, have recently learnt that they don’t have the right to stay there. They don’t have the right planning permission, show letters issued by Fingal County Council to the plots’ landlord.

At an area meeting on 9 January, some Fingal councillors called for more of this kind of planning enforcement at the industrial estate, which holds a mish-mash of all kinds of services, from car repair places to immigrant-run takeaways and supermarkets, from warehouses to mosques.

Particularly, they said, more enforcement when it comes to takeaways.

Many of the premises there seem to have changed use without planning permission, said a motion from Fianna Fáil Councillor Howard Mahony. It called for a full planning enforcement review at the industrial estate.

“We’ve been harping on and off for a long-time about lack of enforcement in Coolmine Industrial Estate and it’s gone from bad to worse,” said Mahony at the meeting.

Debate didn’t really get into the detail or discussion, though, of what is allowed in the industrial estate at the moment, or about the diverse communities that are served by what is there, or what vision the council and councillors have for the place.

Canciu set up her fish kiosk during the pandemic to serve the local community and relies on the income, she says.

But all of the paperwork around planning was news to her – it just wasn’t something she was aware of, she says. “Actually I did not know, I just rented the place.”

What is allowed in Coolmine?

Before 2017, the Coolmine Industrial Estate was just zoned for general employment, shows a past development plan.

Since then, it has been split into two puzzle pieces, zoning maps show.

The western side is now zoned as “local centre”, which means it aims to “provide a mix of local community and commercial facilities for the existing and developing communities of the County”.

The eastern side is zoned as “general employment”, which is supposed to “provide opportunities for general enterprise and employment”, the Fingal development plan says.

Mahony says that his issue is with takeaways.

All the businesses should be checked, he said at the meeting.  “And close the businesses that should be closed,” he said, with a laugh. “I won’t miss my curry.”

On the phone later, he said: “We found in recent years that there was a huge concentration of takeaway and delivery, fast food.”

The buildings they are in aren’t zoned for that, he said. But he didn’t specify which in particular he was talking about.

A “local centre” zoning does allow for fast-food outlets and takeaways, cafes and restaurants, and supermarkets up to 2,500 sqm.

And a “general employment” zoning allows for restaurants, cafes and local retail of smaller than 150sqm, but not big supermarkets. It doesn’t mention fast-food outlets and takeaways as either permitted or not allowed – so that would be assessed case by case, the development plan says.

But also, businesses looking to set up need to apply for planning permission if they’re changing what a space is to be used for, said Brian Molloy, a council official in the Fingal Planning Department by email.

Mahony said he doesn’t have a list of offenders, per se.

But “I can’t recall the last time I saw planning permission for the takeouts and restaurants, or anything for that matter, in Coolmine Industrial Estate”, he said at the council meeting.

In the estate

At the council meeting, Fearghal McSweeney, a council official, said that since 2016, the council’s planning enforcement section had opened 40 files relating to premises there. Twenty are open at the moment, he said.

Among the eight enforcement notices for Coolmine Industrial Estate listed on Fingal County Council’s planning register on 22 January were four addressed to 104 Dillon House on Porters Road.

One referred to Cancui’s fish truck. The business was operating in the car park without planning permission, the letter said.

Two other letters raised the same issue about neighbouring mobile kiosks. Doci’s Café sells coffee and pastries. Cartoon Shed is a takeaway selling kebabs, wraps and milkshakes. All three businesses needed to close up, the letters said.

Canciu says she got her enforcement notice letter “ between 25 and 30 November”. She showed it to her landlord, James Jordan, and he said not to worry because they’d apply for permission, she said, on 23 January.

Jordan didn’t want to talk on the phone about the planning cases, he said yesterday.

He did file a planning retention application on 8 December for all three of the businesses, documents show.

The businesses were set up during the pandemic to serve the community around Coolmine, the application says.

Rejecting the application, Fingal County Council planners said that to allow them would contravene the local development plan objective to prevent an over-supply of takeaways and fast-food outlets in local centres.

The development plan says this objective is needed “to ensure that injury is not caused to the amenities of these streets and centres through the loss of retail opportunities”.

Canciu said there isn’t any other fresh-fish shop around there. So they were surprised when it was turned down, she says.

A spokesperson for Fingal County Council said that, as the planning application is within the appeal period, they can’t comment on why allowing International Fresh Fish would cause an oversupply.

The traffic question

How planners and councillors want visitors to Coolmine Industrial Estate to travel there is a bit unclear.

Another reason that the planning retention for International Fresh Fish was refused is that it would bring more pedestrians to the entrance where cars drive in, says the decision letter.

That’s a traffic hazard and contrary to sustainable development, it says.

In his application, Jordan notes that there is a footpath all the way from the front of the estate to the kiosks, showing there’s a safe route for pedestrians.

There is still plenty of room in the car park for cars visiting JJ Carpets, the retention application says, even if the mobile kiosks take up some of their spaces.

At the council meeting, Mahony had raised concerns about cars and parking. “There are so many businesses located where they shouldn’t be located, every nook and every cranny, there is no parking,” he said.

Cauciu says that there can be a rush around 1pm to 2pm on Friday when there are prayers at the mosque, and also when customers visit the Moldova shop, she says. But generally traffic during the day is quiet, she says.

On Friday at Doci’s Café, one of the neighbouring kiosks, Lena Doci said she didn’t see access as a problem. “We are not on the road, we are on the side and there is plenty of space for people to cross. “

Canciu says she has largely been in the dark about the planning issues and what was going on with them.

“I did not know if it was decided or not; I did not know anything about this,” she said, on 23 January.

She had assumed all was okay because she had been through the annual Health and Safety Authority inspections, she said.

Doci said she was thinking about starting a petition.

“This is my job, the only income that I have. Everybody knows us here. Everybody accepts us here; we also have lots of friends,” she says.

What should be here?

At the January council meeting, independent Councillor Tania Doyle said she thinks the council really needs to get hold of the issues she sees in the estate.

“A review needs to be done and maybe put a taskforce together, a committee. I don’t know,” she said.

McSweeney, the council official, said that actually the council’s property section was mapping at the moment who exactly is in Coolmine Industrial Estate. “So that is being done.”

They have counted 166 businesses there, he said.

The council’s development plan also commits to a new framework plan for Coolmine Industrial Estate, a long-term vision for how the area should be developed with input from the public.

At the moment, there are vastly different visions, suggest comments from councillors and those who visit the estate.

On 9 February, Donal Lonergan, a secondary-school teacher of business and history, was ordering a coffee at Doci’s Cafe.

He brings his daughter to music lessons in Coolmine Industrial Estate, he said, as he waited for the hot drink.

His ideal vision for its future is basically the present, he says. “Keep it the same: many, many businesses, this is where I come to get my car fixed, to get a coffee, my kids do music here, there is Go Kids Go, tile shop, it’s got everything, it’s brilliant.”

Mahony, the Fianna Fáil councillor, has a short and straight reply when asked about Coolmine’s future. “Planning enforcement, as far as I am concerned,” he says.

Not necessarily kicking them out, he said, but getting places to apply for planning permission retention so they can stay.

Doyle, the independent councillor, said that the dynamic of the estate has changed since its earlier days as a commercial hub. But the development there at the moment is sporadic and ad-hoc, she said.

As she sees it, it neither enhances nor enriches the community around it, she says. “A degree of pragmatism has to be applied in that an industrial orientated complex can accommodate retail and commercial operations.”

Also, she says, there are too many takeaways and fast-food places. Scaling those back must be part of any future initiative for the estate, said Doyle.

On 10 February, Canciu started a petition addressed to Fingal County Council, which she is asking customers to sign to show the council the locals welcome her business there.

She is still grappling with the uncertainty of the future of her business, she says. “It’s my only income.”