The developer embroiled in a planning row with Pat Kenny over a planned five-storey nursing home adjacent to the broadcaster's home in Dalkey has lost out in a bid to build a nursing home on another south Dublin site.
An Bord Pleanála has refused permission for Richard Barrett's Bartra Capital to construct a five-storey 131-bed nursing home and step-down facility at Cookstown Industrial Estate in Tallaght.
The scheme also included an additional 139 residential units in two apartment blocks, with one reaching to eight storeys.
In its refusal, the appeals board stated that in the absence of pedestrian and cycle links to the town centre and to key transport routes, the scheme “would constitute a poor standard of residential amenity for prospective occupants and would give rise to residential and commercial uses which are disconnected from public transport”.
It also found that the height of the scheme materially contravened the Tallaght town centre local area plan.
The nursing home and apartment scheme faced local opposition and South Dublin County Council refused planning permission across a number of headings.
In an objection, Belgard Area Residents Association secretary and planning officer Peter Forde said that "to date, private sector developers have put forward plans for Tallaght which are essentially high-rise apartment blocks of predominantly studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments with a token gesture of three-bedroom units in some cases".
“This plan is more of the same but without even the token three-bedrooms.”
Tallaght Community Council also objected to the scheme.
An Bord Pleanála had previously refused planning permission to Bartra for 150 build-to-rent apartment units and 222 shared co-living units on the site in 2019.
Bartra’s bid to construct a nursing home on lands adjacent to Pat Kenny’s home in Dalkey is currently before An Bord Pleanála. Last year, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council refused planning permission for the five-storey 104-bedroom nursing home.
