A luxury apartment scheme on a 3-acre site beside Castle Park School in Dalkey has been given the go-ahead.
Developer Twinlite has obtained a final planning grant from An Bord Pleanála for the 49-unit development.
Initially planning permission was refused by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council for three reasons – most curiously, because the council felt Twinlite needed to consider the future needs of the school and whether it needed space to be retained to allow for its expansion.
However the school had sold a portion of its lands for redevelopment in 2004 for a sum believed to be around €19.8 million, which funded a €14.5 million redevelopment of its facilities.
In the developer’s appeal to An Bord Pleanála, it argued that the lands could no longer be considered part of the school landholding for future development on the basis that the school had long ago divested itself of any interest in the site. The Bord accepted this position and granted planning permission.
Twinlite, led by the Larkin family, will begin construction soon. The unusual curved shape of the seven pavilion-style apartment blocks will be just one of the unique features of the scheme, whose design has been heavily influenced by the existing woodlands on the site, according to the developer’s design team.
Only about 23 per cent of the 3.14 acre site will be occupied by the new apartments, with the majority to be laid out as landscaped woodlands, including new walking trails around the perimeter, playgrounds, seating areas, lawns and a communal garden pavilion under the approved plans.
In all, it took about 10 months to secure planning permission on the site from the initial application to securing a final grant of permission. Nearby, developer Francis Rhatigan’s Winterbrook is facing similar delays at the site of Charleville on Dalkey’s Harbour Road.
Having initially applied for planning permission in August 2017 for a 56-unit development, the council refused permission in October and the developer is now awaiting a decision from An Bord Pleanála following its appeal of the council’s decision.
