PlanningAppeal: An attempt to turn the Loreto Abbey convent complex in Rathfarnham into offices with 191 car-parking spaces has been rejected, writes Edel Morgan

Developer Liam Carroll has failed in his bid to turn a series of convent buildings at Loreto Abbey in Rathfarnham, Dublin 14 into offices.

His company, Oze Construction and Lozeto Ltd, previously got planning permission to turn the buildings into a 102-bedroom nursing home but says it could not find an operator to run it.

Carroll's company lost its first party appeal to An Bord Pleanála against a refusal of permission by South Dublin County Council to turn the convent complex on Grange Road into offices with 191 car-parking spaces.

An Bord Pleanála refused planning permission on the grounds that the proposal would materially contravene the residential zoning objective of the site which is "to protect and/or improve residential amenity" and which does not permit offices of over 100sq m (1,076sq ft).

The Loreto complex comprises a Georgian house, a Victorian concert hall, a gym building, a chapel built in collaboration with Pugin, the famous English architect, and a late Victorian dormitory building.

Loreto Abbey was originally Rathfarnham House, built in 1725 and was acquired by the Loreto nuns in 1822.

Carroll's company, which paid around €17 million for the 12.1-acre site in 1999, argued in its appeal that it had been impossible to find a nursing home operator as the need for long term maintenance of the chapel, concert hall and gym "proved unattractive", and that the buildings do not lend themselves to nursing home use without significant partitioning.

It said that the proposal was in the interest of "progressing sustainable use of the protected structure" and that offices would fulfil the need for minimal works to the historic fabric of the buildings.

The developer has already built 260 apartments in the grounds of the abbey. The original planning permission was to change the use of the various convent buildings from institutional to nursing home use, apart from the chapel which was to remain unaffected, except for its basement.

The chapel, famed for its beauty and regarded as of major international architectural significance, has a glazed-dome central atrium above a marble altar. The developer submitted in its appeal that the chapel "needs to secure an active use", which was not the case under the previous permission where access was by request only.

It sought to have the chapel used as a meeting facility with the rest of the building as a managed office environment "similar to Heritage House on St Stephen's Green or a flagship headquarters for a professional organisation".

An Bord Pleanála disagreed with its inspector Andrew C Boyle's recommendation to grant permission for the development subject to a number of conditions.

It upheld the decision of South Dublin County Council and said the nature and scale of the proposed office development would contravene the residential zoning objective.

It said that additional traffic and car-parking requirements generated by the proposed development would result in traffic congestion.