Criticism of decision to give green light to Cork apartment development that will ‘dominate’ area

A Cork city councillor has criticised an An Bord Pleanála decision to allow a development on the Blackrock Road that is both taller and denser than targets for the area set out in the Cork City Development Plan.

Last week, the board went against wishes outlined in an appeal by 10 residents, a previous Cork City Council decision and their own planning inspector’s recommendations by granting permission for a six storey apartment block, this following the council and inspector recommending it be reduced to five, and local residents saying even five storeys would “dominate” the area.

The development consists of four three storey houses and two apartment blocks of five and six storeys, which will contain 144 apartments. The board noted that while the southern part of the site was within the Inner Urban Suburbs area, the northern part of the site is within the City Fringe Corridor area.

The Development Plan sets target building heights for both these areas at three to five storeys and five to seven storeys respectively, but it also does not explicitly prohibit buildings of six storeys in the Inner Suburbs Area, they said, while explaining their decision to overturn the council’s condition that a storey be removed.

The developer, Dwellings Developments Blackrock Road Ltd, had appealed for this condition to be overturned, saying that “the lines delineating between respective ‘character’ areas are drawn in an arbitrary manner and deemed indicative in nature”, and that given the site’s location, increased height should be promoted.

The An Bord Pleanála inspector, however, had agreed that the site is in an accessible location proximate to the city centre, but said: “Whilst the map shows boundaries faded into one another, the location of the proposed apartments is clearly within the Ballintemple and Blackrock area”.

The board acknowledged that the proposed development “would result in a change in the visual landscape of the area”, but decided it “would not unduly affect the character or setting” due to “the high quality design of the proposed development”.

They also said that while the density of the proposed development at 83 dwellings per hectare (dph), was in excess of the range specified in the Development Plan for the Ballintemple and Blackrock of 40-80 dph, it was within the range of 45-100dph for the Inner Urban Suburbs, ruling that the density “was satisfactory having regard to the overall location, quality and design”.

They decided therefore that the plans “would generally be in accordance with the Development Plan in relation to building height and density”, and that “the omission of one storey was therefore not warranted or necessary”.

Labour councillor for the South-East ward, Peter Horgan, told The Echo: “It’s farcical to suggest a site sits within two different sections of the city development plan and therefore the site can bend around the height restrictions the democratically ed city development plan set. If the board had a query on the development plan inconsistency it should have reverted to the council and the elected to seek guidance.”