Plans by developer Bryan Cullen to build an apartment complex on former Enable Ireland land in Sandymount, Dublin 4, have been controversial with local residents.
Dublin City Council received 24 objections to a planning application to build 42 apartments and four townhouses in three blocks fronting Sandymount Avenue.
The land was sold by Enable Ireland last year by tender for in excess of the guide price of €9 million. The site is bounded by Gilford Avenue to the east and is within 300 metres of Sandymount Dart station and 600 metres from the Merrion Road.
Objectors were mainly residents from Sandymount Avenue, as well as a handful from nearby Wilfield Road, Castle Road and Durham Road. Sandymount and Merrion Residents Association and Green Party TD John Gormley were among those who objected to the scheme.
The traffic implications of a separate entrance to the site on Sandymount Avenue, which residents say will exacerbate rush hour congestion, was one major concern.
According to residents the Dart crossing on the avenue already causes a regular build up of traffic, compounded by on-street car-parking on one side of the road. This "barely allows two cars to pass each other . . . to add 100 more cars is inconceivable", said one objection.
Locals say there are too few car-parking spaces in the proposed scheme which will result in increased on-street car-parking in the area. Another concern is that the car-park is on land that is prone to flooding.
The height of the apartment blocks - which rise to four storeys - is another issue. They believe the "overbearing" nature of the proposed development will change the character of Sandymount Avenue and tower over nearby buildings and houses causing overlooking.
Local Progressive Democrat, Cllr Wendy Hederman, says that while the site's Z12 institutional zoning requires that 20 per cent of the site is supposed to be accessible to the public, this area can only be reached by a narrow pathway between two blocks.
"One would need to be brazen to go onto a private apartment development to avail of the so-called public open space," she says.
She says that nearby Sandymount Green and a large house at the start of Gilford Road are zoned residential conservation areas and a modern block immediately beside would detract from their status.
