Dublin’s €9.5 Metrolink must not be built at the expense of Lidl Ireland’s possible future plans for its lands in Ballymun, which could potentially involve a 15-storey tower over the rail line, the supermarket giant has said.
In a new submission to An Bord Pleanála, Lidl said Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) had made “unfair” comments about Lidl’s plans for its site during public hearings last March.
It was “essential” any decision the board made on Metrolink would “take full account of future development of the Lidl site and not restrict it in any way”, and any decision which would fail to provide for Lidl to build over the line “flies in the face of common sense”, the company said.
State transport body TII in September 2022 applied for permission for the 18.8km Metrolink line with 16 stops, from Swords in north Dublin to Charlemont close to Ranelagh.
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Public planning hearings opened on February 19th of this year and closed on March 28th, but with just two days to go before the end of the hearings, board inspector Barry O’Donnell said there would be a “requirement to re-advertise” the project due to a large amount of new information submitted by TII.
Lidl owns lands at the proposed Northwood metro station just south of the M50 in Ballymun. During the course of the hearings, it presented outline designs of a potential commercial and residential development including 200 apartments in blocks up to 15 storeys tall over the station.
TII representatives told the hearing they had never seen these plans before and were entirely taken “by surprise”.
Dr Ronan Hallissey, representing TII, said Lidl’s plans would require a redesign of the tunnel at Northwood, “and we don’t think that’s reasonable in the context of a proposed new development that’s just appeared for the first time today”. TII had worked for a number of years with Lidl to establish parameters for high density development on a different part of the supermarket site, Dr Hallissey said.
In its new submission to the board, Lidl said for TII to claim it had been taken by surprise was “unfair comment”, as the company wrote to An Bord Pleanála in November “setting out the case” for development over the station.
“Irrespective of the actual design, height or density of development, the principle of OSD [over station development] was clearly and unambiguously flagged by Lidl in its November 2022 submission,” it said.
During the course of the planning hearing, however, TII had produced “developer guidelines” which outlined constraints on the weights of buildings which could be built over the line with an “unacceptably low loading limit” Lidl said.
“Indeed, as it stands the loading limits would allow for over-station development equivalent to a single house, rather than a high density, mixed use, employment and residential development, which is an inefficient use of land located at a transport interchange.”
National and local planning policies on building near major transport facilities “obligate high-density development on the subject site, to its fullest extent”, Lidl said.
Preventing this was “inexplicable in today’s planning climate where the entire thrust of planning policy demands the best and most efficient use of urban sites with the highest densities at public transport interchanges.”
The submission continued: “In effect the station and tunnels need to be considered as the foundations for the future Lidl development.”
The board said its inspectors are in the process of assessing the new submissions and it “cannot say at this juncture if it considers it necessary or not to reopen an oral hearing”.
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