An Bórd Pleanála has refused planning permission for a major residential development in Dingle.
Social Housing Company with an address at Upper Main Street, Dingle, was granted permission for the private housing development at The Grove in Dingle by Kerry County Council.
The development was to consist of 61 apartments of one and two beds, 21 single-storey terraced houses, and eight detached houses.
On appeal, An Bórd Pleanála has now overruled the council and refused permission, citing the scale and density, among other reasons.
The granting of permission by Kerry County Council was appealed by several third parties, who cited concerns about traffic, density of housing, and appropriateness of design.
An Bórd Pleanála has now decided to refuse permission on three grounds, which the Board says deem it contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.
The Board says the site is in a peripheral location within a small to medium-sized town, with a lack of safe pedestrian and cycle-friendly means of connectivity with the town centre.
It says the design, scale, and mass of the apartment blocks in the centre of the site would be visually incongruous in the context of the adjoining development, and the scale and density of the scheme is excessive.
The Board writes the proposed development would constitute overdevelopment of the site.
It says the layout and design would result in a cramped and substandard form of development, because of the poor quality of its public realm and private amenity spaces, and lack of coherent design strategy to create an attractive and distinctive sense of place.
The Board also notes the proposed development does not comply with national policy on childcare facilities, in the absence of sufficient information on traffic safety implications and need for co-ordination with existing childcare facilities in the vicinity.
One existing childcare facility in Dingle, Áiseanna na hÓige, was one of the appellants in this case, and Social Housing Company subsequently appealed one of their recent planning applications in order to, as the company said, return the favour.
An Bórd Pleanála has yet to decide on the case of the extension by Áiseanna na hÓige.
