Cairn Homes looks set to spark a fresh planning battle in Dublin 4 as it lodged plans on Wednesday for a large-scale apartment and hotel scheme on former RTÉ lands at Montrose in Donnybrook.
Cairn Homes Montrose Ltd is seeking planning permission for 688 apartments comprising 416 build-to-rent apartments and 272 build-to-sell units. It also includes a 192-bedroom hotel, 17 “age-friendly living” units, a creche facility, restaurant and cafe, artisan food shop, residential amenities and associated site works.
The scheme is to be built across 10 blocks with one block, containing the hotel, to reach nine to 16 storeys in height. Three other blocks will reach to 10 storeys in height with four others reaching to eight storeys. A basement level accessed from the Stillorgan Road is to also provide 457 car spaces and 490 bicycle spaces.
Cairn Homes chief executive, Michael Stanley, said the application lodged Dublin City Council was its first under the new Large-Scale Residential Development structure.
“Cairn is committed to constructing a range of high-quality, sustainable new homes with complimentary facilities and infrastructure for both residents of the development and the wider community,” he said. “Our track record demonstrates that when we successfully achieve planning permission, we commence high-quality developments at scale and pace and Montrose won’t be any different.”
The scheme is larger in scale than the €338 million 614-unit scheme in nine apartment blocks ranging from four to 10 storeys in height that Cairn secured planning permission for from An Bord Pleanála in September 2020.
Billionaire Dermot Desmond was a vocal opponent of the initial Cairn scheme, describing the proposal as “Ballymun Towers South Dublin” in a letter to Dublin city councillors.
In March 2021, An Bord Pleanála consented to a High Court order quashing its permission for the Cairn 614-unit scheme following a High Court challenge by three local residents, Chris Comerford, John Gleeson and Pat Desmond, wife of Mr Desmond, to the board’s decision.
The new plan by Cairn Homes comes five years after it paid RTÉ €107.5 million for the 8.64 acre site. The developer first commenced its bid to build on the site in December 2018 when it put preliminary plans before An Bord Pleanála.
The lodging of the plans comes more than five months after Dublin City Council provided Cairn with a detailed formal opinion following statutory pre-application discussions on the firm’s proposed mixed-use development.
The new Large Scale Residential Development (LRD) procedure replaces the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) system which allowed developers to bypass councils and lodge their plans direct to An Bord Pleanála.
The SHD system is being phased out. Under the new LRD system, applicants and third parties can appeal council decisions to An Bord Pleanála.
