Tidy towns group challenges permission for 400 apartments near Dublin mountains

A tidy towns group claims planning permission granted for the development of 402 apartments near the Dublin mountains is invalid and should be quashed by the High Court.

An Bord Pleanála gave approval last October to Shannon Homes Dublin Unlimited Company for the large-scale residential development at the site of a former Augustinian seminary at Taylor’s Lane, Ballyboden. The board’s green light came on foot of an appeal by Ballyboden Tidy Towns Group and a residents’ association against an initial permission from South Dublin County Council.

In a judicial review aimed at overturning the approval, Ballyboden Tidy Towns Group, with an address in Rathfarnham, cites environmental law and alleged failures by the board to identify contraventions of the local development plan.

This is the group’s second High Court outing over the Taylor’s Lane site. It succeeded in securing orders in January 2022 overturning an earlier permission for Shannon Homes to build 486 apartments at the same plot.

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Mr Justice David Holland found An Bord Pleanála failed to properly consider public transport capacity for the area before deciding the project could proceed. The judge found a further flaw regarding the scheme’s density which, at about 142 dwellings per hectare, breached the objectives of the local development plan.

On Monday, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys granted the tidy towns group permission to pursue a challenge to the board’s October 2023 approval for three apartment blocks of up to five storeys. Its case is against An Bord Pleanála, with Shannon Homes as a notice party, but neither were formally notified of the application seeking leave of the court. The judge adjourned the case to a date in January.

In its challenge to the permission Ballyboden alleges the board failed to conclude that the proposed 115 units per hectare materially contravened the local development plan, being 230 per cent higher than the higher densities provided for [n the plan, says the group.

A further error occurred by the board not identifying that an alleged shortfall of public open space on the site was also a material contravention of the development plan objectives, it alleges.

The European Union’s Environmental Impact Assessment Directive was not complied with, Ballyboden claims, as the board should not have excluded the possibility that the project would have significant effects on the environment when there was no adequate survey of local bats and otters. The planning authority also could not lawfully exclude likely significant effects on the Wicklow Mountains special area of conservation, the group alleges.

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