RDS warns it may have to sell site

The Royal Dublin Society may have to sell its lands at Ballsbridge and move to another location if planning permission for a €100 million office development at the landmark Dublin site is blocked, a planning consultant for the RDS has indicated.

The consultant, Mr Bernard McHugh, told a Bord Pleanála hearing into the plan yesterday that his clients did not have "deep pockets or endless resources" as had been claimed by some objectors.

Rather, "they may just have to decide to trim their sails, and do less, or find another site to operate on" if the proposed development did not go ahead.

The 1.86 hectare development, encompassing new competitor facilities, stables and paddocks, as well as five multi-storey office blocks, "would secure the long-term future of the RDS in Ballsbridge," said Mr McHugh.

But Mr Colm MacEochaidh, for An Taisce, told the hearing that the RDS's claims amounted to "economic blackmail" and "a planning nonsense".

He said the RDS was a profitable, "wealthy" organisation, which was already earning €600,000 a year on a lease to the Four Seasons Hotel, and which had admitted to showing a surplus of €1.3 million last year. Using the "vaguest of economic arguments", the applicants could just as easily have asked for an incinerator on the site in order to give them an income stream.

"If they are going to argue they are broke," he added, "they need to provide an awful lot more than the financial information they have heretofore provided the board with."

Mr MacEochaidh described as "illegal" the decision of Dublin City Council to grant planning permission for the development, claiming it breached the local authority's development plan. He urged An Bord Pleanála to refer questions of interpretation of that plan to the High Court, and in the absence of such a referral to overturn the council's decision.

Defending its handling of the application, however, the council's senior planning officer for the south-east, Mr John O'Hara, said it had reached a "finely balanced decision" in accordance with its obligations under the plan. While economic factors were a consideration, he said the primary consideration was the retention of the zoning of the lands for amenity and community use.

He said it was important "socially, historically and culturally" for the RDS to stay where it was.

"We do not want to see the site moved out to the suburbs, or the hinterland area," Mr O'Hara said.

He added the council had attached conditions demanding the RDS enter into a legal agreement, ensuring that the site was not sold off but was rather retained as an ongoing source of income.

The council had also requested the development be set back eight metres from Simmonscourt Road to protect a number of trees and avoid the creation of an "over-urban effect".

The condition would lead to a reduction in office floor space by 2,100 square feet to 21,500 square feet.

Mr McHugh said there was no question of the society "testing the waters" in order to pave the way for further developments.

He noted that in the past 20 years the RDS had reduced its land holding from 29.5 hectares to 16.2 hectares and "continuation of this would not be sustainable". The total "footprint" of the development was just 11.3 per cent of the existing land-holding, and 76 per cent of the works would be on brownfield as opposed to greenfield land.

Mr McHugh added the height of the largest building - a six-storey office block - was 27.2 metres, which was just under one metre below the height of the Four Seasons Hotel.