Around 130 residents of Mount Merrion met local politicians at a meeting in the Community Centre on Thursday evening 7th July and vowed to fight the planning application by Balark Investments Limited a company associated with well-known developer Greg “Ronaldo” Kavanagh. The proposal is to build 63 residential units including 2 four storey blocks of apartments on a 1.1-hectare site which was part of the Christian Brothers school and monastery grounds.
The normal entrance to the site is through Woodlands Avenue and the site also has an entrance via the Old Dublin Road. However, the developer with the agreement of Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has purchased a house in Cherrygarth which he proposes to demolish and use as an entrance to the planned development. Residents, county councillors from all parties, Josepha Madigan TD, Catherine Martin TD and Shane Ross Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport are all united in their determination to fight this proposal. The meeting was convened by Mount Merrion Residents Association (MMRA) and Councillor Barry Saul.
While the MMRA is fully supportive of sustainable and balanced development we consider it vital that the planning mistakes of the past are not repeated. For this reason, the MMRA is strongly opposed to unsuitable, badly designed and out of proportion developments which will inevitably lead to safety issues, traffic congestion and have a serious adverse impact on the local community.
The proposed development will, if it proceeds cause serious traffic and safety problems in Cherrygarth /Trees road, flooding of gardens on Trees Road and Cherrygarth and is a perfect example of the ill-conceived developments being encouraged by DLRCC. The proposal removes playground and sports amenities from both Oatlands primary and secondary schools and removes any scope for expansion of school facilities, destroys the existing residential environment and results in totally unsuitable development.
What are we asking residents and interested parties to do?
The MMRA will do everything in its power to oppose such developments and invites all residents of Mount Merrion and surrounding areas to join us in preventing the wholesale destruction of Mount Merrion through such construction by lodging a formal objection to this proposal.
MMRA has retained the services of an experienced architect, an urban planner and a leading planning consultant to examine this proposal and their opinion is that the scale and nature of the proposed development is out of character and detrimental for Mount Merrion as a whole, will seriously degrade local amenities and result in the construction of totally unsuitable housing.
Possible grounds for objecting to Oatlands planning application D16A/0465
- Over development of the site – density proposed of approximately 60uph is nearly double the density of 35uph recommended for suburban locations. (uph = unit per hectare)
- Unsuitable development – the mix of three storey units and four storey apartment blocks is incompatible with the prevailing character of the area which is primarily low rise/low density.
- Adverse effect on the residential amenity of neighbours by reason of overlooking, loss of privacy and overshadowing due to balconies on 4 storey apartment blocks.
- Height of four stories not in line with County Development Plan.
- Open space requirements of 25% on clerical sites not complied with.
- The apartment blocks will have an overbearing relationship with the proposed dwellings
houses, for example it is only c. 15m from some of the proposed units to the west.
- Creation of traffic hazard at Cherrygarth/ Trees Road junction. A minimum of 100 additional vehicles will exit to Trees road from Cherrygarth. During construction tens of thousands of cubic meters of material will be removed from the site to facilitate construction of underground car parks. An enormous amount of material will have to be moved on to the site in order to raise the levels by over 2 meters. This will result in noise, dust, serious health impacts for residents and damaged roads.
- By having sewage and waste water outfalls to Cherrygarth will necessitate raising the site levels by at least 2 meters and this will result in gardens on Trees Road and Cherrygarth being subject to flooding.
- Destruction of a 300-year-old wall which is part of our historical heritage.
- All the indications are that DLR CC have approved the significant aspects of this application prior to submission of formal application.