Community leaders rebuffed attempts by representatives of the Spencer Dock applicants to meet them to discuss the proposed development, said Mr Dermod Dwyer, chairman of the applicant consortium and Spencer Dock International Conference Centre Ltd.
He told the hearing that community leaders told him to "withdraw the entire application and then we'll talk to you".
Mr Dwyer, in outlining the community action programme, said public representatives were also unhelpful in attempting to reach an agreement over the proposed development. The public representatives told him to "meet us all or you meet none".
He said the applicants for the development had put out a newsletter and set up an office to make information available to the public.
Mr Dwyer said communities were never static and that "anyone saying all residential buildings must be low is not fully au fait with reality".
The project would cost £353.5 million, including a total cost of £250 million for the National Conference Centre, £30 million for a rail station and £24 million for linear park land. The development would provide some 1,000 jobs, 60 per cent of which would be "accessible to the local community".
He said about 340 jobs would be created by local support businesses, over 300 would be created by hotels in the area and about 200 by the National Conference Centre.
The development was conscious of the Dublin Docklands master plan and was "unlike adjoining sites in the IFSC where the walls are so high they make it look like something out of a German prison camp".
He said the Spencer Dock project offered "unsurpassed planning gains". The development was not just an office development but consisted of 40 per cent residential units, 40 per cent offices and the rest taken up by hotels and the National Conference Centre.
In addition to the conference centre, the linear canal and urban parks, the Technopole and rail links, the development also envisaged an exhibition centre of over 50,000 square feet, a training centre, childcare facilities and recreation and leisure facilities.
He said, from an environmental point of view, energy demands would be met in part from Treasury Holdings wind farms. There would be grey water recycling (sourced from rain, local water tables and waste water regeneration). Three listed buildings in the area would also be restored and student accommodation would be provided.
He said "the key to the project is the designer". Mr Kevin Roche, an Irish-born US architect, was chosen after a worldwide search for international experience fitting of Ireland entering the 21st century.
He showed examples of Mr Roche's work in various parts of the world, including the Oakland Museum, California, part of the Pontiac Marina Hotel, Singapore, and the Metropolitan Museum, New York.
He said Mr Roche would be at the hearing on Thursday.