The High Court has overturned planning permission for 300 apartments and houses in Monkstown in south Co Dublin.
Mr Justice David Holland said he was satisfied to quash the permission on grounds including that An Bord Pleanála was wrong to find that an environmental impact assessment screening report identified and described adequately the effects of the proposed development on the environment.
By adopting a report which did not describe those effects adequately, and could not of itself, in law, provide an adequate basis or determination that an assessment was not required, the permission granted must be quashed.
Monkstown Road Residents Association and three individual residents – James Barry, a retired Dublin city sheriff, of Richmond Park; Bairbre Stewart, a chartered accountant of Clifton Terrace, and Christopher Craig, a social entrepreneur, of Belgrave Terrace – had brought judicial review proceedings challenging the permission granted in August 2020.
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Lulani Dalguise Ltd had proposed building eight blocks of apartments, ranging from five to nine storeys, and 22 houses on a 3.6 hectare site at Dalguise House. The developer, which was a notice party to the proceedings, had also planned to convert the house into two separate dwellings and a creche.
The residents’ action was against the board, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, the State and Irish Water. Dún Laoghaire Rathdown Council was also a notice party to the proceedings.
In their action the residents had also claimed the board had erred in accepting the developer’s assertion no wintering birds were found on the site when that assertion was based on a survey not carried out during the wintering bird season.
It was also claimed that the board lacked sufficient scientific expertise to adequately, objectively and scientifically evaluate the proposal before it, and failed to carry out an independent scientific review for the purposes of article 12 of the Habitats Directive.
The board, it was claimed, also failed to ensure the proposed development would prevent deliberate disturbance of bats and deterioration or destruction of their breeding sites or resting places.
Other grounds concern the board’s interpretation of building height guidelines and its approach to a material contravention of the development plan in relation to the height of the development.
The residents’ action was opposed.
In a detailed and lengthy judgment on Tuesday, Mr Justice Holland, who is one of the judges designated to hear actions against strategic housing developments, also said that there was no question that the height of the proposed development did materially contravene Dún Laoghaire Rathdown’s building height policy.
All other grounds of the challenge were dismissed by the court.
