THE "gigantic" new buildings proposed for the Phoenix Park racecourse would be "totally out of scale" with nearby housing and would "dominate the entire area", according to Fingal county planners.
In a lengthy submission to An Bord Pleanala, Ms Joan Caffrey, senior planner, also went beyond the reasons for refusal given by the county manager, Mr Davy Byrne, to include the proposed development's impact on the Phoenix Park.
Describing it as "unquestionably the most important open space in Dublin" and "a vital part of the nation's heritage", she said the park would suffer a loss of environmental quality because of the "intrusive" nature of the proposed development and the traffic it would generate.
Ms Caffrey said any scheme which would adversely affect "heritage assets of national importance" such as the Phoenix Park and the Royal Canal, which runs north of the racecourse site, would appear to be at variance with national policies to protect the value of these assets.
The racecourse scheme would also result in the "effective loss" of the visual break between Ashtown and Blanchardstown, which constituted a "vital link" in Dublin's network of green belts as well as having "severe negative effects" on the amenities of housing estates in the vicinity.
She also disputed the planning precedents cited by the developers to justify their scheme, pointing out that it would be nine times larger - at 350,000 square metres - than Croke Park, a proposed stadium in Clondalkin and a planned leisure dome" in Santry.