Council recommends planning refusal for senior living scheme on former Blackrock RFC lands

Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has recommended that contentious plans for a new €50 million build-to-rent ‘senior living’ apartment scheme for Blackrock, Co Dublin be refused planning permission.

In July, Tetrarch Residential — part of the group that owns the Citywest Hotel — lodged fast-track plans with An Bord Pleanála for a new 108-unit build-to-rent seven-storey apartment scheme on lands overlooking Blackrock RFC on Stradbrook Road in south Dublin. The site was sold by the club last year.

Planning documents lodged with the application state that the scheme “will provide a real alternative for older people who wish to move into accommodation suitable for their needs as they grow older”.

However, as part of a 58-page planner’s report into the scheme, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has recommended a comprehensive refusal to An Bord Pleanála.

Sony WF-1000XM5 wireless earbuds: another leap forward in quality and comfort

---

Technology developed in Cork allows wedding photos to be shared digitally with the happy couple

---

Scope for budget tax cuts and cash for households is limited - this will be a difficult pre-election package to agree on

---

We are at last creating AI approaching human intellect but the underpinnings are insubstantial

---

The appeals board has received 80 third-party submissions on the scheme, with the vast bulk of these objections from locals to the scheme.

The council recommended a refusal after concluding that a build-to-rent development at the location would “set an undesirable precedent for similar development”.

It also concluded that the scheme represents “overdevelopment” of the site as “it will seriously injure the residential and visual amenities of properties within the immediate vicinity”.

The project involves the demolition of an existing office building and the council said the change of use from office to residential “would represent an inappropriate use at this site in an established employment location site and would be injurious to the employment purpose of the site”.

The reasons put forward by the council to refuse planning permission echo many of the points made by locals in their objections.

However, An Bord Pleanála frequently grants planning permission to Strategic Housing Development (SHD) schemes where councils recommend a planning refusal.