Fitzwilliam Real Estate has secured planning permission in Dún Laoghaire. Photo: Irish Air Corps
Noel Smyth’s Fitzwilliam Real Estate has secured planning permission for contentious plans for a 74-unit build-to-rent scheme for Dún Laoghaire’s Seafront Quarter.
The decision by An Bord Pleanála is the latest twist in a long running planning saga concerning the firm’s attempts to develop the site.
Plans were first lodged more than three years ago in January 2021 for a 102-unit build-to-rent scheme rising to 13 storeys, which was stalled by a residents’ judicial review action before the High Court.
Now the appeals board has granted planning to a scaled-down scheme for the same site at St Michael’s Hospital car park, Crofton Road, Dún Laoghaire almost two years after Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council granted planning permission for the proposal in July 2022.
The Fitzwilliam firm lodged plans for 88 units in November 2021 for two blocks ranging from eight to nine storeys and reduced the scheme to 74 units, reducing each block by one floor.
In total 12 third parties appealed the decision to An Bord Pleanála. As part of a 143-page report into the case, appeals board inspector Stephen Ward has commented that it cannot be ignored that the absence of significant development on the appeal site “has created a spacious atmosphere and a largely unobstructed outlook from the surrounding properties”.
Mr Ward said he studied the central and accessible location of the site and the need to promote compact development, the scale and design of the proposal and the separation distances proposed. He said he did not consider “that the proposed development would result in any unacceptable overlooking or overbearing impacts for the surrounding properties”.
Mr Ward said it is acknowledged that the hospital buildings included a former use as a Magdalene Laundry, while the appeal site was formerly used as an adjoining “kitchen garden”.
He said the appeals contend that it would be morally wrong to develop the site and there is a possibility that the site includes an associated graveyard, while the applicant refutes the suggestion that the appeal site accommodated any such uses.
Mr Ward stated that while he is conscious of the sensitivities of such cases, “I do not consider it reasonable to prevent the further redevelopment of a brownfield site in the absence of any evidence of the existence of a burial ground use”.
