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Dublin Cycling Campaign (DCC) is entitled to an order voiding the permit for a housing development that includes 741 apartments built for rent on a site at the rear of Dublin’s Connolly station, the High Court has determined.
The proposed development would also include 135 new parking spaces that the developer said did not require a permit.
Judge Denis McDonald upheld the Dublin Cycling Campaign’s arguments that An Bord Pleanála erred in law by failing to assess the 135 parking spaces as part of the planning request.
The effect of that failure was that the development did not constitute a “strategic housing development” (SHD).
The board can only grant permission directly for one SHD development and all other developments must go through the normal planning process.
In granting the permit, the board acted in excess of its powers under section 9 of the Residential Leasing and Development (Housing) Act of 2016 because the development is not a “strategic housing development” under section 3 of that Act. , the judge maintained.
As a result, it was appropriate to grant an order voiding the permit, he said. He rejected several additional arguments from the group.
Final orders will be placed next month after the parties have considered the 80-page ruling published on Friday.
Dublin Cycling Campaign CLG, Tailor’s Hall, Back Lane, Dublin 8, is a registered charity with the purpose of making Dublin a better and safer city for cyclists.
His challenge concerned the board’s permission for the construction of building 741 to rent apartments, commercial space and associated site works on CIE land at the rear of Connolly Station, the Connolly Station parking lot, and Sheriff Street Lower. The proposed development is part of a larger master plan for the “Connolly Quarter.”
The development site occupies part of a parking lot used by CIE. Singapore-based Oxley Holdings Ltd, the developer, had agreed with CIE to maintain 180 parking spaces for CIE.
DCC CLG, represented by James Devlin SC, with John Kenny BL, instructed by attorney Fred Logue, argued that SHD legislation provides for a maximum of 4,500 square meters of non-residential uses in a SHD categorization request.
The proposed development includes a new 135-space parking deck on a third floor in one of the apartment blocks, extending to some 4,000 square meters. When added to the 3,100-square-meter business units in the proposed development, that exceeds the SHD threshold, with the effect that permission must be sought from Dublin City Council through normal planning channels, he said.
The Board made a legal error by not taking into account the works to build a car parking platform on the third floor with 135 parking spaces and access ramps, he said. The Board and the developer, a party to the notice, argued that the CIE parking lot did not require planning permission and did not need to be counted for “other uses” within the meaning of the 2016 Act.
In his judgment, Judge McDonald said that despite the conflicting aspects of the materials presented to the board, he believed that a reasonably informed member of the public would ultimately conclude that Oxley had not requested, and the board had not granted, permission for the use of the platform as a parking lot. However, the material would clearly convey that Oxley intended to use the platform as a parking lot in accordance with its contractual obligation to CIE and could see no basis, as Oxley urged, to consider the platform to be of “nil” use.
The plans and other materials before the board told the board that the intended use is as parking, although one that Oxley had reported did not require a separate planning permit, he said.
Because the use of the parking lot was required to be accounted for for the purposes of the 4,500 square meter limitation on “other uses” in the definition of SHD contained in section 3 of the 2016 Act, the board’s permit exceeded its powers under the Law., He held.
It was “totally implausible” to suggest that the proposed use of the platform as a parking lot does not fall, “as a mere fact,” within the scope of “other land uses included in the proposed development project,” he said.
The developer “made an informed decision not to deliberately include” a request for parking, it said. Had it done so, the Board would have been forced to conclude that the proposed development was not SHD.
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