The High Court has granted permission to a couple to bring a challenge to a planned development of 50 apartments on school lands next to their home in Dalkey, Co Dublin.
Developers Curve Devco were granted planning permission last April by An Bord Pleanála for a three-to-four storey high apartment development on a 1.2 hectare wooded site which forms part of the larger Castle Park School lands off the Castle Park Road.
The entrance to the private primary school is a landmark castellated structure which is protected in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Development plan.
Ann-Maria Lucey and her husband Denis Lucey, of Castle Close, want the court to quash the board’s decision on a number of grounds, including that the board acted unreasonably and outside its powers.
In particular, they say plans to widen the road inside the castellated entrance was never part of the planning application. Their home, and a number of other houses in Castle Close, back on to the entrance road to the school which will also become the shared access to the new apartments.
They also say access for construction traffic, for the duration of the building works lasting possibly two to three years, will be through the road serving the small cul-de-sac estate in which they live.
This was also not included in any site notice or drawings submitted with the application, they say.
Needs of the school
The developers were also required, as part of the county development plan, to submit a master plan to address the future needs of the school and this was not done, they say.
The Luceys say the current needs of the school in terms of traffic management are constrained by the nature of the lands. If these current needs cannot be catered for, it follows the future needs of the school are also compromised, they say in their proceedings.
There is also a discrepancy in the building heights used in the developer’s plans which meant the board failed to have regard to the significant impact of the development on the Luceys’ home, it is claimed.
On Monday, Mr Justice Seamus Noonan granted permission to John Gibbons SC, instructed by Burns Kelly Corrigan Solicitors, for the Luceys, to seek a judicial review of the board’s decision.
The application was made on an ex-parte (one side only represented) basis.
The matter comes back before the court in October.
