SHOCK, surprise and a degree of fury greeted yesterday's decision by An Bord Pleanala to grant permission for the controversial stadium, casino, hotel and conference centre planned for the Phoenix Park Racecourse in Dublin. Indeed, only the developers did not seem taken aback, so strong was their confidence in the £400 million project.
In recent weeks, Sonas Centre Ltd commissioned a new and elaborate architectural model of the proposed development, indicating it had at least a premonition that the appeals board was going to come down in its favour. But Mr Robert White, the company's managing director, insisted it only heard about it at 1.10 p.m. yesterday.
The Sonas Centre promoters are understandably "delighted" with An Bord Pleanala's decision, which gave them everything they wanted. And although it was made subject to 24 conditions, the board did not, as some sources expected, exercise its prerogative to remove certain elements of the scheme, notably the casino and a 63,000 seat stadium.
It has also become clear, however, that nothing at all will be built on the site unless the Government agrees to introduce legislation permitting casino gambling. As the Sonas chief executive, Mr Norman Turner, conceded at the week long planning inquiry last February, the casino is the "financial engine" driving the whole development.
Yet there is no indication the Government is willing to license casino gambling, particularly on the scale proposed by Sonas. Ms Joan Burton, the Minister of State and Labour TD for Dublin West, said yesterday that she and a number of her colleagues, including the Minister for the Environment, Mr Howlin, were strongly opposed to it.
Although an inter depart mental committee has studied the implications of amending the law, it is understood this was largely in the context of finding a mechanism to fund the national conference centre, which would otherwise require an annual subsidy. As Ms Burton said, the wider social implications of casinos must also be considered.
Another imponderable concerns the proposed conference centre. Last January the Minister for Tourism and Trade, Mr Kenny, aborted a competition among developers for a franchise to build it by announcing that the RDS in Ballsbridge was the preferred location for this development, which would qualify for more than £20 million in EU aid.
However, An Bord Pleanala's decision yesterday allows the Sonas Centre developers to steal a march on the RDS. They now have full planning permission for a 2,000 seat conference centre, whereas the Ballsbridge scheme is still at the feasibility stage. The RDS would still have to go through the planning process.
The 63,000 seat stadium proposed for the Phoenix Park Racecourse site also presents something of a conundrum. Although it would cost £80 million to build, the developers say - and An Bord Pleanala's decision specifies - that it would only be used for 12 major events per year.
The proposed indoor sports arena, seating 12,000, is restricted by the board's prohibition on staging events which end later than 11.30 p.m. Ancillary bar and catering facilities must close at midnight, it said. Nonetheless, the arena would compete directly with the Point Depot, which fears it may be put out of business as a result.
Although the board has set down a number of other conditions "to protect the amenities of the area" its decision falls short of dealing with the traffic problems which the stadium will generate. It is not conditional on the provision of "park and ride" facilities.
Objectors such as Ms Burton have also complained that the impact on the Phoenix Park was not taken into account and that the decision "flies in the face" of previous rejections by the board of earlier more modest schemes for the racecourse site, on the grounds that it was essential to preserve its function as a "visual break", or green belt.
The reasons give by the board also seem tenuous. It referred to the previous use of the site for recreational and sporting activities, saying the proposed uses (including the stadium and casino) were also recreational in character and, as the site was also close to major road and rail links, it was an "appropriate location" for such a development.
The board also said that, subject to compliance with the 30 conditions it laid down, the proposed development "would not seriously injure the amenities of the area or the amenities of residential property in the vicinity and would otherwise be in accordance with the proper planning and development of the area".
In contrast, this week the board refused permission for a £20 million shopping centre in Bray, Co Wicklow, on the grounds that the scale of the proposed development was "seriously excessive", that it would "seriously injure the amenities of the area" and that it would also "create serious traffic congestion".
A spokesman for An Bord Pleanala said yesterday this merely illustrated that every case was examined on its own merits. Nonetheless, given that the scale of the Sonas Centre and the traffic it was likely to generate were the main planks of the case made by the objectors, the discrepancy seems to suggest that the board has become more unpredictable than ever.
One thing is certain, however. The board - as its chairman, Mr Paddy Duffy, has conceded - takes into account the interests of "Ireland Inc". Thus, it granted planning permission for such controversial schemes as the Masonite plant in Co Leitrim the Loran C mast in Loop Head and Dublin's proposed municipal dump near Kill, Co Kildare.
It would also seem, as the Phoenix Park Racecourse shows, that the board is acutely conscious of economic impact - particularly in terms of job creation - and that the larger the scheme is, the more likely it is to win approval. However, as one spokesman for the developers said yesterday: "The fact that it's big doesn't mean it's bad. Small is not always beautiful."
