The High Court quashed a Dublin Docklands Development Authority certificate for a proposed three-building office development at North Wall Quay, Dublin, after finding that the decision-making process breached fair procedures and gave rise to a reasonable apprehension of bias.
The certificate, DD457, had been granted to North Quay Investments Ltd. for three office buildings on a site bounded by North Wall Quay, New Wapping Street, Mayor Street and Castleforbes Road. The applicants, North Wall Quay Property Holding Company Ltd. and Sean Dunne, had contractual rights in an adjoining property and held a separate certificate for a proposed residential development.
The applicants argued that the Authority should have allowed affected adjoining landowners to make submissions before deciding whether to issue a certificate. The court held that it should have done so: the statutory scheme gave the Authority discretion over conditions and left important planning matters open to judgment. The judge said the Authority needed a procedure that let interested people learn of an application and make submissions, with an opportunity for the applicant to reply.
The court also found that the proposed development, which was entirely commercial and on a site larger than 0.2 hectares, did not meet the North Lotts Planning Scheme’s required mix of uses. A certificate could not rely on a possible future development elsewhere on the developer’s land to meet that requirement. The judge further held that the Authority could not certify a proposal that was inconsistent with the scheme and then require design changes to make it compliant. The court’s conclusion on those points concerned the certificate as proposed and its conditions; it did not determine whether a separate, compliant application could be made.
A separate agreement dated 31 May 2007 provided for the developer to transfer a strip of land to the Authority if the certificate was granted. The Authority had identified the land as appropriate for public open space, and its executives had committed to recommend that the application be granted by a specified date. The judge concluded that the agreement and its terms created a reasonable apprehension that the Authority might be biased in deciding the application. The court also declared the agreement ultra vires.
The court did not decide whether the Authority had power to require land to be transferred through a certificate condition. It also did not determine the applicants’ separate challenge to the agreement on the ground that it was ultra vires by assessing the executives’ authority to enter it; no such authority issue had arisen in the proceedings. The formal orders were certiorari quashing the 13 July 2007 decision to grant DD457 and a declaration that the 31 May agreement was ultra vires.