Planning permission for a 21-home housing estate on the grounds of a single house in Foxrock has been refused by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for being too low in density.
A housing developer sought planning permission to demolish an existing, vacant home on Mart Lane in Foxrock and to build a housing estate made up of 14 two- and three-bed duplex units, and seven houses on its grounds.
The 0.59-hectare (1.48-acre) site is currently occupied by a late-1960s bungalow known as The Grove, with a footprint of 205 sq m, but which was said to be “of little or no architectural merit”.
The Property Price Register shows that The Grove changed hands for €2.875 million in late 2023. A buyer had originally been sought at an initial asking price of €3.25 million, in 2022, but the house returned to the market with a heavily reduced guide of €2.25 million before its sale.
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The transaction came as part of a slew of sales of large houses in the area in 2023 with a view to the development of compact-housing schemes on their land.
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In refusing the planning permission, the county council said the development would set an “undesirable precedent” for similar projects.
The development, the council said, represented a density of 34.5 units per hectare, which does not adhere to planning guidelines promoting residential density of between 50 and 250 units per hectare. The developer has a four-week window in which it can appeal the refusal to An Coimisiún Pleanála.
The development is located close to St Brigid’s BNS, and the principal of the school, Stephen Flood, submitted an observation to the application querying the level of noise and construction vehicles nearby during school time.
This latest planning application was submitted by Mart Lane Property Developments Limited, whose largest shareholder is Dubai-based short-term holiday letting company Maison Prive Holiday Homes Rental LLC, which owns 48.5 per cent of the company.
Trading as Maison Privee, the short-term letting agent was founded in 2017 by former-Bus Éireann chairman Paul Mallee in response to the growing popularity of Airbnb and other short-term vacation rentals.
The directors of Mart Lane Property Developments Limited are also involved with housing developer Genus Homes, which is behind the more than 200-home Linenfield development north of Drogheda.
The site was previously subject to a planning application for 14 homes at a density of 20.3 units per hectare, which was also rejected by the council, which cited the low-density application being “under-development” of the land.
The refusal was appealed to An Bord Pleanála (now An Coimisiún Pleanála), which upheld the council’s decision.
