Dublin’s longest running strategic housing development (SHD) planning case, a build-to-rent application that involved the construction of several storeys of apartments on top of a protected Victorian house, has been refused by An Bord Pleanála.
Ted Living Ltd in November 2021 applied for fast-track permission for 146 rental-only apartments in blocks up to eight storeys on the old Tedcastles Yard industrial site in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin.
The site included Dun Leary House, a distinctive yellow-brick, detached four-storey house dating from the 1870s, built for the original owner of the adjoining coal yard. As part of the scheme the developer wanted to remove the roof of the protected structure and build three storeys of apartments on top of it.
Under the SHD system, which was discontinued in 2021, applications for large scale residential developments were made directly to An Bord Pleanála, bypassing the local authority planning system to speed up the delivery of housing. The board had a statutory mandate to issue decisions within 16 weeks. In the end it took 138 weeks for the case to be resolved.
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To avoid delays, public hearings on SHD applications required “special circumstances” and would “only be held in very rare cases”.
In May 2022 the board took the unusual step of deciding to hold a hearing, due to the “extensive removal of original fabric internally and the removal of the roof form” of the house.
The board asked the applicant to address the possibility of retaining and repurposing some original features inside the house and reinstatement of others.
A hearing was held in June 2022 and an alternative proposal was submitted retaining the gabled roof of the facade and chimney stacks.
Six months later, in December 2022, the board’s inspector Rónán O’Connor recommended the revised proposal be granted.
[ Public hearing to be held on Dún Laoghaire scheme in rare moveOpens in new window ]
It took another 20 months for the board to make its decision and it has this month refused permission. In its reasons for refusal the board noted the Dún Laoghaire County Development plan required the “renovation and rehabilitation” of Dun Leary House, but the revised proposals would still “overwhelm the existing structure”.
One month in advance of this decision Ted Living applied to Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council for permission for 87 apartments in two blocks on the site, again up to eight storeys high, and the refurbishment of Dun Leary House as a four-bedroom home.
Following the discontinuation of the SHD system, housing developers can once again make applications for large-scale schemes directly to their local authority, regardless of whether an application for the same site is awaiting a decision by An Bord Pleanála.
Michael Boyle, a conservation architect representing the developers, said the new application represented a “significant reduction in the scale, massing and height” and the “conservation-led retention and refurbishment of Dun Leary House” as a “large family home will provide a sustainable long-term future for the protected structure”.
Independent Senator Victor Boyhan, who originally proposed the protection of the house in 2016, said it would have been useful to have the benefit of the board’s decision in assessing the new application, but the final day for submissions ended the same day the board issued its ruling.
While the site was suitable for housing, Mr Boyhan said, and the new scheme recognised the significance of Dun Leary House, the apartment blocks would still have an “overbearing impact” on the protected structure and would “constitute significant overdevelopment of a site of heritage sensitivity” he said.
Brock McClure, planners for the developer, said the choice to submit a new application to the council while An Bord Pleanála’s decision was pending was a “prudent and proactive” one.
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