The Christian Brothers have taken High Court proceedings aimed at compelling Dublin City Council to grant default planning permission for a development of 171 houses and apartments on 3.4 acres owned by the order at Dublin's North Circular Road.
The council says it is prepared to grant permission for the development but only subject to 21 conditions, including a condition restraining the order from demolishing a late 19th-century gate lodge described by the council as "unique". The order wishes to demolish the lodge to widen the entrance to the development and says it will re-erect it on another part of the lands.
Local residents groups have also objected to the development on grounds including loss of amenity, loss of views and loss of a large number of trees.
If a default permission is granted on the basis of the order's claim that the council failed to decide on the planning application within the relevant time limits, the council says this will allow the order to carry out a large development "unfettered" by any of the 21 conditions.
The council's conservation section wants the gate lodge included on its register of protected structures.
"The demolition of the existing gate lodge and its re-erection elsewhere would be analogous to taking a Picasso painting, carefully scraping off the oils and then reinstating them meticulously with the aide memoire of a photograph," Clare Hogan, conservation officer with the council, said in an affidavit. "It would serve no useful purpose from a conservation viewpoint."
The council claims a default permission would also deprive it of €2.1 million for public infrastructural works, payment of which was required by one of the 21 proposed conditions. The public would also be unable to appeal against a default permission to An Bord Pleanála, it says.
Mr Justice Peter Kelly has fixed May 2nd for the hearing of the proceedings in the commercial division of the High Court.
The Christian Brothers are seeking orders to the effect that the council had granted permission by June 6th, 2005, in the terms of the original planning application.They are seeking to quash a permission granted by the council of June 23rd, 2005. They claim that permission was decided outside the relevant time limits and is null and void.
The Christian Brothers claim they gave no written consent within eight weeks to the council's application to extend the time for making a decision for which written consent was required under the relevant planning Acts.
The planning application was received by the council on November 4th, 2004, for the development at North Circular Road of 171 residential units, consisting of terraced houses, duplexes and apartments, 191 car parking spaces and ancillary works.
Permission was also sought for the demolition of Highfield House and the gate lodge.
The gate lodge at the entrance to the Brothers' lands was constructed between 1875 and 1886 in the Gothic style. In December 2004, an executive planner in the council's conservation section recommended that Highfield House and the gate lodge be added to the register of protected structures.