Dublin City Council has refused planning permission for plans by developer Keith Craddock to construct a 38-unit accommodation block for elderly members of religious orders in need of care.
The council refused planning permission to Mr Craddock’s Granville Developments Ltd for the three-storey residential accommodation comprising 38 en suite bedrooms at Haddington Place on a site to the rear of Sisters of The Holy Faith in Ballsbridge after the Department of Education and locals objected.
The councilrefused planning permission on the grounds the scheme would give rise to unacceptable levels of overspill vehicular activity on a narrow laneway due to the location of the proposal on a constrained infill site.
The council said that the proposed development “would, therefore, endanger public safety by reason of a traffic hazard and obstruction of pedestrians, cyclists and other road users”.
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The planning authority pointed out that Haddington Place was a key pedestrian/cyclist route providing access to two schools “and the proposed development would create an undesirable precedent for similar type development”.
The council also refused planning permission as the lack of on-site car parking spaces for the proposed development would be seriously deficient and would be inadequate to cater for the parking demand generated.
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Planning consultant for Granville Developments, Kevin Hughes had told Dublin City Council that the proposal would “provide residential accommodation and care to members of religious orders in need of care”.
However, in one objection, Susan McCarrick on behalf of the Pembroke Road Association questioned who the nuns that would be accommodated were as religious communities already provide homes for their retired members.
Ms McCarrick said “that we are expected to accept and believe that there will be an unlimited supply of elderly nuns to take up residence is fanciful”.
The council received 11 submissions and in a separate objection, the Department of Education disclosed that it made a bid to purchase the site “to safeguard it for future educational use but was ultimately outbid”.
Requesting the council to refuse planning permission, assistant principal officer at the Dept of Education’s department’s forward planning and site acquisitions section, Deirdre Maher, said that it was “concerned that the loss of this site would undermine its ability to meet current and future educational needs in Dublin 4”.
Ms Maher said that the site “represents one of the very few remaining opportunities to provide essential educational and community infrastructure in the locality, given the scarcity of available land”.
