The High Court has quashed An Bord Pleanála’s permission for a 204-home development at Stoney Hill Road, Rathcoole, after finding material contraventions of South Dublin County Council’s development plan on housing density and green infrastructure.
Mr Justice Humphreys made an order of certiorari against the permission granted on 12 November 2020 to Romeville Developments Limited. The judgment, delivered on 21 June 2023, concerns the domestic planning-law grounds in a judicial review. The court adjourned grounds it did not decide, including a modularised challenge concerning strategic environmental assessment. It did not decide the applicants’ EU law challenge to environmental impact assessment screening, as the case could be resolved on domestic law grounds.
The proposed scheme included 204 homes, a childcare facility and associated works, as well as demolition of existing buildings. The council had raised concerns about the proposal, including tree and hedgerow removal, access, apartment amenity and open space. The board’s inspector recommended permission, and the board generally adopted that report.
On density, the court found the development plan required compliance with the 2009 residential development guidelines. Those guidelines set a range of 20 to 35 dwellings per hectare for the type of edge-of-centre site identified in the inspector’s report. The scheme proposed 40 units per hectare. The judge concluded that the excess contravened the plan and was material, estimating that compliance with the upper limit would have meant about 179 homes rather than 204. He also found the inspector had treated the excess as a breach of the guidelines but had not considered whether the contravention was material.
The court separately found a material contravention in the treatment of trees and hedgerows. The development was to remove about 674 metres of hedgerow—roughly half the site’s total—and nearly all of its trees. The judge held that this conflicted with development-plan objectives to reduce fragmentation of the green infrastructure network and restrict development that would fragment or prejudice it. He said the board had not properly considered whether the plan was contravened and whether any contravention was material.
The court rejected the applicants’ arguments on the local area plan and sustainable drainage systems. It also found that a challenge to the board’s reference to a provision of the planning regulations had not been pleaded. Several other grounds were not pursued.
The order provides for the unresolved issues to be adjourned generally and the case to be listed for mention. The judgment stated that, unless a contrary written submission was lodged within seven days, the order would be perfected with the applicants’ costs against the board, including reserved costs.