Pat Kenny and his wife, Kathy have lost out in their battle against plans for apartment blocks on a site beside their Dalkey home.
An Bord Pleanala have made a surprise decision giving Richard Barrett’s Bartra Capital Property planning permission for the 18 apartments along with six houses for the 1.4 acre site.
The appeals board has given the scaled down plan the go-ahead in spite of the staunch opposition by the Kennys and other locals and a strong recommendation by the board’s own inspector to refuse planning permission.
The ruling by the appeals board also overturns a decision by Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to refuse planning permission for the contentious plan.
The inspector said that the proposed development would have an overbearing impact, would be visually obtrusive, would overlook and would seriously injure the residential amenities of the adjoining properties.
Mr Moloney stated: “As such the proposal would detract from the amenities of adjoining properties, would be out of character with, and fail to respect the established pattern of development in the vicinity, and would set an undesirable precedent for similar type of development in the area.”
But the board said that in deciding not to accept the Inspector's recommendation to refuse permission, that the development followed planning guidelines.
The planning permission - unless successfully challenged in the High Court by the Kennys and others objectors who have that option - will now mean that Bartra can secure a return on its investment on the site.
Last August, Bartra Capital Property paid €3.1m for the Maple Tree House site adjacent to the Kennys' home and also paid for an additional 0.51 acre site.
The Kennys led the local opposition against the plan with 17 other objections from locals also lodged against the planning application.
The Kenny objection pointed out that their home, The Anchorage abuts the subject site.
The Kennys stated that the loss of light on their property that would result from the proposal “would be disastrous”.
The objection said that if permitted the development "would detrimentally impact on The Anchorage" and other residential properties in the area.
It added: “It would also set a precedent that could ultimately seriously damage the character of the area.”
They stated that planning permission should be refused as “this development is ill-thought and appears based on the quest for density alone with scant other consideration”.
The Kennys opposed the plan on a number of grounds - density, scale and massing, design, traffic impact, impact on trees and habitat and residential amenity.
The Kennys stated that the development would result in gross overlooking along with loss of light and loss of privacy of The Anchorage.
