Construction of apartment blocks on former RTÉ land set to begin this week
Gotdon Deegan
Cairn Homes is due to commence work this week on the first phase of a €345 million apartment scheme on former RTÉ land.
The move by the home builder to begin construction of the 608-unit scheme comes almost eight years after it agreed a €107.5 million deal with RTÉ to buy just under nine acres of land at RTÉ’s Donnybrook headquarters in Dublin 4.
The initial phase will consist of residential construction in the northwest corner of the site at Montrose.
This will include enabling works for the future development of the wider site, as well as the start of residential development within one of the blocks, Block 10, which will have 15 residential units.
The move comes 18 months after An Bord Pleanála granted planning permission. The scheme will be made up of 608 apartments in nine blocks, ranging in height from two storeys to 10 storeys. There will be 272 build-to-sell units and 336 build-to-rent.
However, in a split decision the appeals board refused permission for a 16-storey tower that was to include a 192-bedroom hotel and 80 apartments.
In a submission to the appeals board last year, Cairn Homes confirmed that would lodge a new Large Scale Residential Development (LRD) application in the first quarter of this year to address the omission of Block 5, the 16-storey tower containing the planned hotel.
In its submission, Cairn told the appeals board that it is intended that a new LRD application will be lodged for reinstatement of Block 5, "albeit with reduced height, amended design and potentially amended uses”.
Cairn Homes’ plans for the former RTÉ site have met with strong local opposition. The firm told An Bord Pleanála there was “a high risk of litigation against a future grant of permission, having regard to the history of litigation against a previous permission”.
The current permission in place was Cairn Homes’s second attempt to build on the land. A previous planning permission granted by An Bord Pleanála was quashed by the High Court after action taken by three Ailesbury Roadd residents: Chris Comerford, John Gleeson and Pat Desmond.
The current application came before An Bord Pleanála after six third-party appeals were lodged against the decision by Dublin City Council to grant planning permission for the entire scheme in December 2022.
The appellants included Pat Desmond, who is the wife of billionaire Dermot Desmond, and Ailesbury Road neighbours in Dublin 4, along with the Republic of Austria, which has its embassy on the Road.
