The amount of compensation being claimed by a controversial shelf company under investigation by the Flood tribunal for lands taken from it by Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council for the building of a motorway has been more than halved, it emerged yesterday.
English-based Jackson Way Properties originally submitted a claim for €116 million from the council after the local authority took from it by way of compulsory purchase order some 20 acres of land for the construction of the South-Eastern Motorway.
However, when the claim went before an arbitrator's hearing in Dún Laoghaire, Co Dublin, yesterday, it emerged the amount now being sought in compensation was just over €47 million.
Mr Hugh O'Neill SC, for Jackson Way Properties, informed the hearing the claim had been revised downwards by more than €60 million. He said the reduction was brought about as a result of many uncertainties and delays that might be faced by a developer of the lands.
He also said he accepted that in June 2000, when the lands became the subject of the compulsory purchase order, they could not have been used for development purposes and this was borne into the valuation.
Nevertheless, he said, it had to be borne in mind that in mid-2000 "the market was at its absolute height and lands with significant problems were changing hands" for very large amounts.
The revised claim took the County Council by surprise. Mr Dermot Flanagan SC, for the council, said this was the first time he knew the true basis of the claim being made by Jackson Way Properties. Its claim submitted in June 2001 was "extremely large" but detailed on only 1½ pages, he said.
Despite the claim having been more than halved, the council still believes it is too high and is contesting it at the hearing.
Mr O'Neill said when his client's original claim was submitted to the council in mid-2001, the council refused to negotiate. An arbitration hearing was due last January but was postponed as a result of the council going to the High Court to seek an injunction which would prevent the arbitration going ahead until the Flood tribunal investigated allegations of bribes paid for the rezoning of Jackson Way Properties' lands at Carrickmines in south Dublin.
The injunction was granted but was appealed to the Supreme Court by Jackson Way Properties. The Supreme Court refused to put off the arbitration hearing, saying there wasn't "a scintilla of evidence" that Jackson Way did anything improper in relation to rezoning.
Mr O'Neill told yesterday's hearing the claim arose from the fact that the council's plans for the completion of the M50 would result in his client's lands being divided in two. The total area of lands owned by Jackson Way Properties in Carrickmines was 109 acres, he said.
Some 20 acres were the subject of the compulsory purchase order, a further 20 acres to the east of the proposed motorway was zoned industrial while 68 acres to the west was zoned agricultural. The effect of the motorway was to create a boundary, removing the development potential of the 68 acres to the west, he said.
Mr O'Neill submitted that the 1998 development plan for the area said people in the area should be able to access their requirements for daily living within walking distance of Carrickmines. He believed the 68 acres of Jackson Way lands to the west of the motorway would have been zoned residential by now, but for the motorway.
This argument was also put forward by Mr Tom Phillips of Frank L Benson & Partners, planning consultants. He said the lands were just 200 metres from a proposed Luas line, which would make them appropriate for a high-density residential development.
He said the motorway had "a detrimental impact" on the development potential of the land.
Mr Flanagan put it to him that the only access to the land was through a lane to Carrickmines Golf Club which was effectively "a country boreen" and this would have reduced the possibility of a development getting the go-ahead on the lands, even if they were zoned residential.
Mr Phillips said a phased development of the lands could have provided for opening up access to them.
He said in many instances planning permission was granted for such lands on condition that the applicant provided the local authority with a substantial contribution towards infrastructure.