Several housing blocks in a proposed high-rise scheme for Dublin's Spencer Dock are reminiscent of Mountjoy Prison or Dolphin's Barn, an architect representing Mr Dermot Desmond told the Bord Pleanala hearing on the scheme yesterday.
Mr Paul Keogh said it was an "incredible failure" of the residential and commercial scheme proposed for Spencer Dock that it did not make a virtue of the Royal Canal which runs along the west of the 51-acre site.
Mr Keogh was speaking on behalf of Mr Desmond and the IFSC South Block, one of eight parties appealing the decision by Dublin Corporation to grant partial planning permission for the 26-building scheme north of the River Liffey.
The corporation last August granted full planning permission for one building and a 2,000-seat conference centre, the site's anchor. It granted only outline planning permission for the remainder, which it also scaled back from 6 million to a maximum of 4.6 million sq. ft. More than 50 conditions were attached.
Mr Keogh said it was "extraordinary" that the proposal by a business consortium, including CIE which owns the land, did not capitalise on the "fantastic urban design potential of the canal."
Mr Seamus Mac Gearailt, a traffic expert also speaking on behalf of Mr Desmond, said the scheme, with 10,088 workers, would have very severe traffic impacts for the surrounding area.
The morning peak traffic to the scheme would be up to four times higher than the developers had indicated.
Even using optimistic assumptions, the developers had understated the rate by a factor of 2.5, he said.
The proposal was dependent on a large number of major public transport improvements, but there were no firm funding commitments or implementation timetables for most of them.
An Taisce's chairman, Mr Michael Smith, said the proposed development was a "squandered opportunity for perhaps the most exciting urban design brief in the history of the State".