PLANNING PERMISSION for a €230 million residential development at Barrington Tower on the Brennanstown Road in Cabinteely, Dublin 18, has been appealed by local residents to An Bord Pleanála.
Estate agent Bill Doyle who bought the 8.6-acre site in 2005 for a then record price of €36 million - €21 million over the guide price - got planning permission from Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to build 158 houses and apartments.
The scheme is designed as a mix of 25 detached houses, 12 semi-detached houses, six terraced houses and 109 apartments.
However Cabinteely and District Residents' Association is one of two parties appealing planning permission for the development, saying it would be premature pending the preparation of a local area plan.
The residents' association says the development would have a "detrimental impact" on traffic on Brennanstown Road and would particularly worsen traffic problems in Cabinteely village.
It says that building a large scale development that exits out onto "a poorly constructed road, even after the proposed traffic calming measures" would be dangerous and would impact on the junction between Old Bray Road and Brennanstown Road which, it says, is already "at saturation point".
Paul Fitzpatrick, who lives in a cottage near the site, says the density of the proposed development is excessive when taken in the context of Barrington Tower, an early 19th century folly and protected structure attached to a 1950s mock-Georgian house.
In his appeal letter to the board, he says the modern design of development is "out of keeping with existing buildings on the site and buildings in the surrounding area". Describing the house type proposed to the south-west of his property as "overly complicated with an unnecessary number of materials used", he also objects to the design, scale and height of the interconnected apartment blocks which he says are inappropriate in that location.
Barrington Tower dates from the 1830s and was built as a viewing point from which to enjoy the land. He says the four-to-six-storey apartment building at the eastern and southern ends of the site "divorces the tower from the distant landscape of which there would historically have been views".
A first party appeal was submitted to An Bord Pleanála by Bill Doyle against a number of planning conditions imposed by Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council. Also part of Bill Doyle's proposal for the site are two community rooms within a five-storey building, a crèche.
The site would also have pedestrian access to the new Luas station when the Green Luas line is extended to Cherrywood in 2009.
Barrington Tower takes its name from the Barrington family whose remains are buried in the Quaker graveyard that adjoins the property. The tower still looks out over an almost rural landscape with views of Carrickmines Valley and the Leadmines chimney.
The two-storey house was added in the 1950s by the Maguire family, who owned the Brown Thomas department store.
