Application for 13-storey tower cynical, say councillors

Dublin city councillors have described as "cynical" and "insulting" plans for a 13-storey tower block in Phibsborough village, submitted before the new development plan for the area is drafted.

The city council has received a planning application from builders Stateford Ltd for a new complex of more than 200 apartment at the former Old Mill bakery at Cross Guns Bridge beside the Royal Canal at Phibsborough in north Dublin.

Most of the blocks in the development are between six and eight storeys high, but one block would reach 13 storeys, making it the tallest building in the area. The application has been made ahead of a new local area plan (LAP), that will govern all future development in Phibsborough and the surrounding area.

It will form the basis for determining what happens to major sites such as Mountjoy Prison, Dalymount Park football grounds, Grangegorman and the old Smurfit printing site on Botanic Road.

Like the recent Ballsbridge LAP, it will lay out guidelines for the types of development that are suitable for particular sites, and crucially, will determine the permissible heights for buildings. It is unlikely that a 13-storey building would be permitted under the plan and councillors have accused the developers of trying to avoid complying with the new plan.

"This is a very cynical attempt to try to get permission before work starts on the area plan and before the area plan is agreed. One of the outcomes of the area plan would be to ensure that a development like this would not go ahead," Fine Gael councillor Paschal Donohoe said at a council meeting on Tuesday.

The height of the development was "excessive", he said.

Emer Costello (Labour) said she was "totally appalled" by the application. "I believe this application is premature and is a cynical effort to put something through before the development plan is drafted. My recommendation to the planners would be for outright rejection at this moment because the development is insulting to the community."