Approval granted for more than 200 build-to-sell apartments along Dublin’s Grand Canal
Planning permission for a build-to-sell, 241-apartment scheme spread across four blocks along Dublin’s Grand Canal has been granted, subject to several conditions.
The up-to-seven-storey scheme, proposed by an applicant under the name of Green Urban Logistics 3 White Heather Propco Limited, would be developed in White Heather industrial estate in Dolphin’s Barn, behind Our Lady of Dolours Church.
An original 250-unit proposal consisted of 148 one-bedroom units, with the remainder studio apartments (12 units), two-bedroom apartments (74 units), eight one-bed duplex apartments and eight two-bed duplexes.
However, as a condition of planning, Dublin City Council said the scale should be revised downwards to 241 apartments, to protect the visual and residential amenity of the area.
Developers must also procure a public artwork “of good quality” within the first six months of the development’s life and install bat-friendly lighting along the canal corridor, amongst other conditions.
Internal residential amenity spaces are also planned as part of the scheme, which is classed as a large-scale residential development, along with a crèche and a café.
Car parking is relatively limited on site, with 86 spaces proposed, along with 421 bicycle parking spaces and 8 spots for motorbikes.
In an accompanying design statement, the developer said the proposal would provide a “vibrant and diverse community” with “high-quality landscaping and public realm”.
"White Heather gives the opportunity to revitalise a section of ‘lost’ canal frontage and create an access to a new public amenity by the Canal,” it read.
The scheme is also well served in terms of public transport, they wrote, citing nearby high-frequency bus routes and the Luas Red Line, located approximately 850m from the site.
The demolition of existing on-site industrial warehouses is proposed to accommodate the development, with the exception of the An Post parcel delivery centre and local business Storage World on the eastern edge of the site.
However, in a lengthy objection from Storage World, they said the applicant had placed their business outside the scope of the plans despite part of it being inside the development area.
Compiled by BPS Planning Consultants, the planning observation report said: “This situation in which Storage World is both in and outside of the estate somehow suits the applicant’s purposes, but we say the red line boundary (site boundary line) is currently illegal and invalid.”
“The applicant has gone to great lengths to try to make it appear that the estate is carefully shown within the red-line boundary and contains only some old industrial units which will be ‘unused’ if the scheme does not proceed. This could not be further from the truth,” they wrote.
Storage World said their business could be fully incorporated into the scheme if so desired by the developer, but it “has always been the applicant’s intention … to remove all existing uses from the site.”
"Such an approach would not have arisen if our client operated another business such as a supermarket. This would likely have been relocated within the scheme.”