The High Court has dismissed a challenge brought by local residents and a community group against planning permission for a 31-apartment development at Blackhorse Avenue in Dublin 7.
The scheme, at 353 and 363 Blackhorse Avenue beside Villa Park, involves demolition of two existing houses and construction of an apartment block of up to four storeys containing 11 one-bedroom and 20 two-bedroom units. An Coimisiún Pleanála granted permission on April 25, 2024 subject to 19 conditions.
John Reilly, Derek Lynch, Conor Coyle, Kevin Fitzsimons and the Villa Park and Blackhorse Community Group sought to have that decision quashed.
Their surviving arguments included claims that the original application documents were deficient, that further public consultation should have occurred after the Dublin City Development Plan 2022-2028 came into force, and that the proposal materially contravened requirements of the newer plan.
Mr Justice Humphreys rejected those grounds.
On the application documents, the court found that several complaints were factually incorrect or concerned technical matters that had caused no prejudice. The existence and location of the recorded monument known as Poor Man's Well had been addressed in the planning material and by the relevant heritage authorities.
The court also rejected the argument that the planning process had to be reopened when the 2022-2028 development plan took effect. The judge noted that the developer's appeal response expressly referred to the new plan and that Mr Reilly was invited to respond after it came into force.
On alleged material contravention, the court accepted that some documentation requirements in the new plan could potentially be significant. However, the applicants had not shown how the material actually submitted was substantively deficient merely because documents carried different titles.
The proceedings were dismissed. The court provisionally proposed no order as to costs, subject to any further application before the next mention date.