Planning refusal for contentious Ringsend senior living scheme

Dublin City Council has refused planning permission for a contentious seven-storey senior living build-to-rent scheme in Ringsend, Dublin 4.

More than 65 objections were lodged against the 30-unit plan lodged by Glencarra Ringsend Ltd, including one from the principal of St Patrick’s Girls’ National School in Ringsend, Anne Smith, who raised child protection concerns.

In a two-page objection lodged with the council on behalf of the school’s board of management, Ms Smith said that if planning permission were to be granted “residents and workmen will be able to look into our schoolyard as well as into our school building — possibly taking photos and videos of our schoolchildren and staff”. She said that this would be of concern “in terms of child protection or GDPR” and noted that: “We would not be able to stop any photos or videos being shared on social media or the internet.”

In refusing permission, the council said it constituted overdevelopment of the site and would be contrary to the Dublin City Council Development Plan.

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The council planner’s report found that the application “would result in the creation of a monolithic block that would fail to result in either a contextual or high-quality design response”.

In its formal refusal, the council also found that the scheme would seriously injure the visual amenities of properties located within its immediate vicinity, by reasons of being visually overbearing, visually incongruous and having overshadowing impacts.

The council highlighted the “detrimental impact on the value of property in the vicinity” the project would have, and said it would set a precedent for similar undesirable development.

A planning statement lodged by the applicant’s planning consultants, Tom Phillips & Associates, stated that the scheme would provide accommodation for 30 professionally-managed social homes for senior citizens on Dublin City Council’s housing list. The site currently accommodates the two-storey Cambridge House.