Planning board shoots down Eircom plans to build 111 apartments in Dublin
Eir has been refused planning permission to build 111 apartments at a site in South Dublin, in the face of local opposition over its “excessive height and scale” among other factors.
The refusal from An Bord Pleanála comes well over two years after telecommunications firm Eircom Ltd first lodged an application under the Government’s now-abolished “fast track” Strategic Housing Development process in March 2022.
Under the strategic development process, planning bids for large-scale developments bypassed the local council and went straight to An Bord Pleanála.
However, the much-maligned process was accused of actually delaying key projects or leaving them in the limbo of An Bord Pleanála’s backlog.
A report published earlier this year suggested 20,000 homes proposed under this process had yet to be determined by An Bord Pleanála with a further 8,000 held up by judicial reviews.
The mix of studio, one-bed and two-bed apartments of up to six-storeys in height proposed for Sommerville House in Churchtown was also judged to have breached the local area development plan set out by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, which was adopted a month after the planning bid was lodged.
Objectors to the development said it was not consistent with the development plan for the area, and constituted “excessive density”, “excessive height and scale with visually obtrusive and dominant impact in the area” and “significantly out of character and scale with existing development on adjoining sites”.
Another submission questioned “the future tenure type of the development, with concerns regarding build to rent over long-term residents”.
In the An Bord Pleanála inspector’s report, it noted the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Development Plan specified developments such as this must have a minimum of 20% of units having three or more bedrooms.
“The proposed unit mix does not comply with the requirement explicitly set out under development plan policy and the proposed development would constitute a material contravention of development plan policy,” the inspector said.
When making its final decision, the three-person board unanimously agreed to refuse the application.
It held its board meeting to decide the case on August 23, 29 months after the application. Originally, applications through the Strategic Housing Development were meant to take a maximum of 16 weeks.
