An Bord Pleanála approves plans for 170 apartments in Clonsilla

An Bord Pleanála has approved plans for 170 apartments to be built on the Clonsilla Road in Dublin 15.

The planned new homes, due to be delivered by developer McHugh Property Holdings Limited, are to be spread across seven blocks to the front and rear of the Clonsilla Inn.

Fingal County Council’s planners had also approved the development, back in September – but several parties had appealed that decision.

Now that the planning board has approved the project, there are a few conditions.

These include leaving road-edge set-backs on the Clonsilla Road in anticipation of future works to make the street more pedestrian and cycle friendly.

As well as a requirement that a childcare facility, planned in the first phase, be “constructed, available for use and/or operational” before the second phase can progress.

Similarly, the developer must ensure that any open or public spaces are satisfactorily completed before the homes delivered in those same phases can be occupied.

Labour Councillor John Walsh said it was disappointing to hear that the board had given the project the green light. “Because it would fundamentally change the character of the village,” he said.

McHugh’s original plan looked like it would worsen the congestion on the already congested Clonsilla Road, Walsh said.

“But I would acknowledge that An Bord Pleanála has imposed some conditions, and I welcome the requirement to keep space for cyclists and pedestrians with a setback,” he said.

Objections

The council has a development plan that sets out councillors’ vision for the county for 2023–2029, and the zonings for the land. So, where housing developments like this one can be built, for example.

But residents and councillors also wanted a new plan specifically for Clonsilla. The council previously published its urban framework strategy for the village in May 2008.

In January of this year, Fingal County Council unveiled its draft of a new village framework plan for Clonsilla, which is out for public consultation until 14 February.

It aims to revitalise the area with traffic-management changes, active travel links and a new recreational space at Lohunda Lodge.

When McHugh applied for planning permission for this 170-apartment development, Walsh and locals had voiced concerns that it shouldn’t be decided before the new village framework plan is in place.

And when the council gave the developer approval to build the apartments on 24 September, councillors, locals and residents associations appealed this decision.

The proposed heights of McHugh’s 170 flats, which vary between one and five storeys, were highlighted by the appellants. They expressed concern that the development would be obtrusive and inappropriate to the area, according to the An Bord Pleanála inspector’s report.

Also among their stated reasons for appeal, according to the inspector’s report, was that they were concerned about traffic, saying that the Porterstown Road is at its capacity, and that these blocks would add to the already congested Clonsilla Road.

The board, in their conditions, have required the developer to prepare a detailed Construction Traffic Management Plan, as well as a Residential Travel Plan, and appoint a co-ordinator to monitor travel patterns and limit private car use.

The board also required that the developer drop its plans for a proposed “hammerhead” at the bottom of Orchard Avenue, just off the Clonsilla Road, in favour of that area being reallocated for open green space, according to the board’s order.

That proposal to make the avenue into a hammerhead link was a very poor idea to begin with, Labour councillor Walsh says. “It would have turned a quiet, narrow laneway into a carpark.”

Safeguarding heritage

Christine Moore of the Clonsilla and Porterstown Heritage Society said the new draft framework plan highlights the need to protect the heritage of the area, and what makes Clonsilla a distinct village.

“But we’re seeing the heritage disappearing fast, and no reference to planning,” Moore said.

Moore and the society intend to make submissions to the public consultation raising the need to address the planning of new housing developments, as currently, they are spending a lot of time trying to prevent the local heritage from being erased by visually obtrusive proposals that are out of character with the area, she says.

Back in June, the society launched a petition to protect a historic chimney stack on the Clonsilla Lodge, a 19th-century building on the Clonsilla Road.

But the council allowed developer Deanbay Limited to knock it to make way for the construction of 57 apartments, she says. “We had to go down to the lodge two weeks ago and rescue the chimney’s plaque.”

Similarly, they are waiting on the outcome of another application, to fell a vernacular structure from the early 1800s, to make way for 82 apartments and eight houses, she says.

“What kind of village is it that we’re looking for?” she asks.