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SOME OF THE country’s best known retail brands have appealed against Fingal County Council granting planning permission to contentious €450 million plans for a 971 unit apartment scheme for the Blanchardstown Town Centre site.
Last month, Fingal County Council granted planning permission to owner of the Blanchardstown Town Centre, Goldman Sachs for the mixed use scheme comprising seven apartment blocks with one rising to 16 storeys in height.
However, eight third party appeals have been lodged with An Bord Pleanála against the Council decision and those to appeal include Smyths Toys, TK Maxx, Woodies DIY, Harvey Norman and Lifestyle Sports.
Applicants and Goldman Sachs entity, Blanche Retail Nominee Ltd have also lodged a first party appeal against the decision.
Other third party appellants are listed as the Whitestown Residents and others, Labour councillor John Walsh and local resident Glen Conroy from the nearby Hillbrook Woods, Dublin 15.
The Council granted planning permission after concluding that the scheme would contribute to consolidating Blanchardstown town centre and provide residential development close to existing services and facilities. The scheme also includes seven commercial units, a community facility, a place of worship and a childcare facility.
On behalf of Lifestyle Sports, Head of Sustainability, Property and LP Muriel O’Keeffe stated that “we are alarmed by the proposed reduction in customer car-parking space. It is difficult to comprehend how the applicant could consider this acceptable”.
O’Keeffe stated that there will be an overall reduction of 525 retail car-parking post development stating “our customers will simply go elsewhere should there be such a significant reduction in car-parking at the application site”.
O’Keeffe said: “It is difficult to comprehend how the applicant could consider this acceptable”.
Consultants for Smyths Toys, RW Nowlan & Associates stated that “it is simply unacceptable” that substandard parking provision for the existing retail units would be available for at least 2.5 years at a minimum.
They stated: “This development should not be permitted to proceed until such a time as a significant and vast reduction in the scale of the development is undertaken.”
On behalf of TK Maxx, Director at Tom Phillips + Associates, John Gannon contended that the proposed development “has the potential to significantly impacted upon the commercial operations of TK Maxx, on a long term basis due to the reduced and less convenient car provision and also for a prolonged temporary period arising from the construction stage”.
On behalf of Woodies DIY, RW Nowlan & Associates have stated that planning permission “should be refused in this instance pending review and consultation by the applicant with the existing business operators with the retail park to provide a sustainable solution to development at the subject site”.
Planning consultant for the scheme, John Spain told the council that the proposal “will provide much needed residential accommodation” and the site is considered suitable for the density, scale, massing and design of the development proposed.
As part of the plan, the applicants are proposing to sell 97 units for social housing to Fingal County Council for €44.9 million.
The appeals board is due to make a decision on the appeal at the end of May.
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There are a lot of resident objections as well. The infrastructure in D15 is already substandard. No school places, public transport overloaded, no GPs, traffic is chaos – the list goes on. If they want to build, they have to supply the services that the new influx of residents will need.
97 Units (prob 1 & 2 bedroom) to be sold to Fingal for 44.9m; that averages at ~€463k a Unit….; madness!
@El Sparko: but how else are they gona put public money in private, foreign wealth/investor fund hands? They can’t just give it to them! Unless they’re a bank that is in danger of going bust but sure the world would see through that wouldn’t it?!……
I don’t understand their objection. During normal trading very few of those car parking spots would be used. 50/60% would be used at Christmas. And as others have said you will have at least two thousand more people homed and buying in the shopping centre. Win win for everyone except people living in Whitestown/Sheepmore. Big apartment block outside your front window
Exactly, they will all shop there and won’t need to run cars.
@TheGrey Gimp: the irony of the someone with the title of sustainability officer arguing FOR parking spaces should not be lost. Obviously they are only interested in sustaining sales not the now standard interpretation of what sustainability is.
Only people leaving/working in Blanch and around will understand what an horrible idea that apartment scheme is. This is dreadfull.
@Dr. Emmett Lathrop Brown: living/working I meant.
This is a horrendous development. Traffic at adjacent roundabout is chronic at best of times. Make Ballymun Towers mistake again. Also Fingal paying 462k per unit for only 97 of the development is ludicrous. Fair play to the Retailer’s objecting
Bad design, wrong location and only going to cause problems. On the bright siode developers make millions and people suffer. The bright side of you are the developer or his staff.
Government paid €107 million in 2021 to hotels/b&b…why not say to the builder , ok pal , we will give you the PP to build your scheme exactly per the plans you have submitted , brick for brick, unit by unit , and we will then buy them of you for the €450,000,000 you say it will cost you. I take it the construction firm has already factored in , increases in raw material, delays due to weather, delays due to strikes etc etc etc .
@Michael Costello: is €450m the cost or the proposed sell on value of the development? Just asking because if its the cost then I don’t think a developer would tie up their resources for a few years building something for zero return, in fact no business would. Might be an idea to stick a margin on it and then go with that but again the developer would want risk averted to some degree via guarantees, or they wouldn’t go for it. Although going by the many comments here this particular development seems like a bad idea to begin with.
@Michael Costello: or the government just declare it a special development zone, build it themselves by hiring other smaller development companies and coordinate the inclusion of better transport and infrastructure upgrades including schools, childcare, sports and community facilities, clinics and quality public urban space. They have plenty of money to do these things, they just won’t. They could hire external management and experts to oversee management and construction and forget this PPP crap and just own it until it starts to pay back. The national pension reserve fund should be doing this. Same as it should have had all NAMAs assets transferred into it years ago. Why should foreign pension funds own our country? Why doesn’t our own? Madness
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