Council gives green light to 16-block mixed-use scheme in Ringsend

A conservation adviser has called Dublin City Council's decision to grant planning permission for a large scale residential and commercial development in Ringsend as "premature, perverse, unsustainable and contrary to the council's own stated plan".

Maurice W Bryan is one of eight parties to lodge appeals against Liam Carroll's Fabrizia Developments' mixed-use scheme to build 783 apartments, offices and shops in 16 blocks on South Bank Road on former Irish Glass Company lands.

Among the other appellants are Sandymount and Merrion Residents Association, John Gormley TD, Bath Avenue and District Residents Association and South Wharf Plc.

Sandymount and Merrion Residents Association is requesting an oral hearing because it says the development would have "adverse effects" on the south side of Dublin Bay - both visually and environmentally.

In his appeal, Maurice Bryan says the "so-called" South Bank Framework plan "purports" to establish a pattern of further development on the Poolbeg peninsula but the lands are in the ownership of several authorities "most of whom have not given their consent to its ambitions". He says the plan makes several assumptions about future transport developments "that have not been validated" and that the plan is "merely conceptual" because it has not been adopted.

The site is on reclaimed land and he believes it is at risk of flooding. "The reclamation consisted of indiscriminate dumping of municipal and other uncontrolled waste over a long period that was then capped with earth to contain any polluting material."

He says the mass of the "monolithic" high density development would overwhelm the surrounding area.

Green Party TD John Gormley says that, if the board takes the view that development of Poolbeg as a new urban neighbourhood "is a desirable outcome, it must insist on a higher quality of design than is proposed in this application".

South Dublin Bay is designated a National Heritage Area (NHA), a Special Area of Conservation (SAC) and Special Protected Area (SPA) on account of its populations of wild fowl, pale-bellied Brent geese and wading birds.

"The development would cause disturbance to the birds because of increased use, by people living there as distinct from people visiting occasionally," says John Gormley.