Councillors agree masterplan for the Old School House in Clonsilla

Fingal county councillors approved the much-discussed masterplan for the heritage Old School House in Clonsilla, and the strip of land around it, last week at their monthly meeting.

Much of the final debate around the plans had already taken place.

At an area committee meeting on 6 November, councillors had pushed for greater emphasis in the masterplan on the future use of the building as a community centre. Seven co-signed motions on that passed.

“The ask that has come to us from residents is relatively modest,” said Labour Councillor John Walsh at the meeting. 

It is for community uses on the site alongside the proposed homes, and that the old schoolhouse be used for community use, Walsh says – and the motions sought to make it clear to any future developer that this was the wish.

At the meeting, council officials raised concerns that the changed wording would make it appear as if the only possible use for the schoolhouse was as a community space. That, they said, wasn’t the case given its residential zoning.

Walsh pointed out that masterplans are non-statutory. Meaning they’re more of a recommendation.

He knows it’ll ultimately be up to planners to decide any applications that come in, he said, but councillors still wanted to relay the desires of the community.

“We’ve a real shortage of community use and community infrastructure in Dublin 15,” he said.

In the document

The future of the Old School House, and the lands around it, have been on the council agenda for years.

Over the summer, the council ran a public consultation on a proposed draft of the masterplan, which lays out objectives for the site including, among other things, design, transport, services, facilities, and recreation infrastructure.

There were more than 270 submissions to the public consultation run by the council over the summer, said a report to councillors. 

The masterplan lands are constrained, running as a strip along the north side of the Royal Canal, said Dónall Ó Ceallaigh, a senior planner, at the meeting on 6 November.

The school house itself is a disused protected structure, he said. It’s toward the eastern end of the strip. 

In drawing up the masterplan, the council, with consultants, had developed a “preferred option” for the site’s development.

It shows a ribbon of homes, with roughly 100 duplexes and houses. It also leaves a  landscaped area around the school house.

Plans also show a community use on the site, he says, and social infrastructure.

The council wants whatever is built there to be high-quality and respect what is there, he says. They’re talking mostly two- and three-storey buildings, he said.

“Scope may exist for this to increase,” he said. But it would have to be really high quality, he said.

Ó Ceallaigh ran through the main takeaways from the public consultation, and the small changes made to the masterplan in response.

Many of the submissions focused on concerns around the condition of the school house, he said. 

His thinking is that the site should be developed as a whole for it to work, he said. “For the Old School House to live again, it won’t live again on its own, it needs development around it.”

He doesn’t think anybody could develop the houses without the Old School House, or the Old School House without the houses, he says.

For those asking for mention of community, tourism and heritage uses, he says, officials had added in more references throughout to community use in addition to the homes. 

The chief executive’s response clarified that Fingal County Council very much welcomes community and cultural uses for the Old School House building, he said.

Other responses focused on the need to protect the biodiversity of the lands, he said. Any developments will have to take that into account, he said.

The Department of Housing submission had, in particular, questioned the findings of the screening reports and ecological assessments. Officials went back and looked at those, he said, and addressed any points.

The main debate

At the 6 November area committee meeting, much of the debate turned on the motions co-signed by cross-party councillors, which sought to put the emphasis further on the preference to use the Old School House as a community space, rather than for homes.

Kieran Dennison, the Fine Gael councillor, said he supported the Old School House being developed for community use. 

But he was concerned about the possibility that the building would just be left to rot further, he said. 

“I’m concerned that if we’re too prescriptive, it will be left and left and something else will happen to it,” he said.

He was conscious too, he said, that the masterplan was just a plan. “It doesn’t follow that there’ll be a planning application anytime soon.”

In June 2021, Osh Ventures Limited had applied for planning permission for 198 build-to-rent apartments on the site. An Coimisiún Pleanála refused the scheme permission. 

At the 6 November meeting, Róisín Burke, a senior planner, said she feared the motions removing any reference to a possible residential use of the Old School House made it sound as if that wouldn’t be permitted under any circumstances. 

But the underlying zoning is for residential, she said. “Omitting reference to residential doesn’t preclude an application or residential on this site.”

She feared there would be a perception among the community that by changing the language of the masterplan, residential won’t be there in the Old School House building going forward, she said. “That’s not how the statutory zoning works.” 

Her concern is also that if the community use isn’t feasible, the building will fall further into disrepair, she said.

Councillors pressed ahead with their motions, though, to emphasise the desire for a community use for the building. And then the new masterplan was waved through at the monthly meeting last week.

Later, Walsh said he wants the council to take an even more active role in  protecting both the building and the surrounding biodiversity. 

The next step as he sees it would be for the council to purchase the Old School House, he said.

In 2023, a spokesperson for Fingal County Council said it was trying to buy the school and the site it sits on. But that hasn’t happened. 

But, in July of this year, a council spokesperson said there weren’t any current plans for it to buy the 5.73-acre site – which was listed for sale for €3.75 million.