An Bord Pleanála has rejected plans by the late and former Anglo Irish Bank chairman Sean Fitzpatrick for a “modest” two-storey, four-bedroom house for a site outside Greystones.
The decision by the board upholds a planning refusal by Wicklow County Council last September for the plans lodged by Mr Fitzpatrick and his wife, Caitriona Fitzpatrick.
The Fitzpatricks appealed the planning refusal and Mr Fitzpatrick (73) died last November while the appeal was before the board.
This ruling by the board follows it previously granting planning permission in December 2020 for a four-bedroomed house application by the Fitzpatricks on an adjoining site that lies close to Greystones Golf Club.
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The planned new Fitzpatrick house at Meadow Garden, Farm Lane in the Old Burnaby area of Greystones, was to be located within the Burnaby Architectural Conservation Area (BACA), a historic suburb developed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries.
In its reason for refusal, the board stated that the BACA “is considered to be of national interest” and the proposed development due to the repeat house design adopted “undermines the character and adversely affects the setting of the BACA”.
As part of a 14-page appeal against the council decision, planning consultant Kevin Hughes described a council refusal reason concerning the planned dwelling “to be entirely disingenuous and wholly at odds with national planning policy”.
In the formal appeal against the council’s refusal, Mr Hughes described the planned Fitzpatrick four-bedroomed house as “a high quality and modest addition to the immediate area”.
The council last September refused planning permission after local residents voiced opposition against the scheme.
In its original objection against the Fitzpatrick proposal, chairman of the Burnaby Residents Association Liam Sweeney told the council that the proposed development “would be out of character with the existing pattern of the area and would represent a crammed form of development”.
Mr Fitzpatrick lost control of the Meadow Garden site when he was declared bankrupt in 2010 with debts of €147 million. He was discharged from bankruptcy in 2014 and Caitriona Fitzpatrick bought back the Meadow Garden site in 2017 from her husband’s bankruptcy trustee.
