Cairn Homes is due to commence works on the first phase of its €345 million, 608-unit apartment scheme on former RTÉ lands at Montrose this week.
The move by the Irish home builder to commence construction works comes almost eight years after Cairn agreed a €107.5m deal with RTÉ in June 2017 to purchase just under nine acres of lands at the broadcaster’s Donnybrook campus.
The start of the construction works follows Cairn Homes issuing a formal site commencement notice on its development. The initial phase of work will consist of residential construction in the northwest corner of the site.
This will include enabling works for the future development of the wider site, as well as the start of residential development within one of the blocks, Block 10, which is to comprise 15 residential units.
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The move also follows 18 months after An Bord Pleanála granted a ten-year planning permission to Cairn Homes Montrose Ltd for 608 apartments in nine blocks ranging in height from two to 10 storeys and comprising 272 build-to-sell units and 336 build-to-rent.
However, in a split decision the board refused permission for a “landmark” 16-storey tower component of the scheme that was to include a 192-bedroom hotel and 80 apartments.
In a submission to the board last year, Cairn Homes confirmed that it is to lodge a new Large Scale Residential Development (LRD) application in the first quarter of this year to address the omission of Block 5, the tower containing the hotel.
In its submission, Cairn told the board that a new LRD application would be lodged in the first quarter for reinstatement of Block 5, “albeit with reduced height, amended design and potentially amended uses”.
Cairn’s plans for the former RTÉ site have met with strong local opposition. Cairn Homes Montrose told An Bord Pleanála “there is a high risk of litigation against a future grant of permission, having regard to the history of litigation against a previous permission”.
Cairn has stated that it is its experience that decisions subject to judicial review can take up to 18 months. The company revealed its intentions to lodge new plans for the site in an unsuccessful appeal to An Bord Pleanála against Dublin City Council’s decision to subject its former RTÉ landbank to the Residential Land Zoned Tax (RZLT) which is aimed at reducing land-hoarding by landowners.
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