The High Court refused Maarten Openneer leave to challenge two planning permissions in County Donegal, ruling that his application was outside the statutory time limit, was not made promptly and had no good and sufficient reason for an extension.
The case concerned permissions granted to John Sweeney and Siobhan Sweeney for separate houses. The applications, numbered 04/2511 and 04/2512, were approved on 7 and 11 May 2004. Openneer filed his judicial review application in December 2004, seeking to have the decisions quashed and the applications declared null and void, as well as an extension of time and a stay or injunction against implementation.
Openneer argued that the council had wrongly returned a joint written objection because it was accompanied by only €20, rather than the fee required for two separate applications. He said a council administrative officer had requested that amount and issued a receipt, and that the council failed to alert him to the shortfall in time to correct it. He also challenged the timing of site notices and raised other alleged planning and regulatory breaches.
The council and the notice parties opposed an extension. The council argued that Openneer knew early on that his objection had been treated as invalid and that permissions had been granted. The notice parties also said they had completed land purchase contracts on the basis that permission would be granted and would face substantial losses if the challenge were allowed to proceed.
Justice Macken found that Openneer could have challenged the rejection of his objection and the planning decisions within the statutory period, but did not. The court was satisfied that his correspondence showed he knew by July 2004 that the permissions had been granted and had asked the council to retract them. The judge rejected his account that he only understood the position was final after receiving a letter in late November.
The judgment also addressed the fee and notice issues insofar as they informed the extension request. The judge said the site notices were in place by about 4 April, giving Openneer time to make submissions. She found that two applications required two fees, that the notices stated the charge for each, and that combining objections in one document did not remove his responsibility to pay the required fees. The court did not decide the merits of the other grounds.
The application for leave was refused. The court therefore did not extend time or grant the requested relief against the permissions.