CITY TRIBUNE
Cairn Homes loses bid to keep Knocknacarra land off Vacant Sites Register
A property company – backed by some of the biggest financiers and investment funds in the world – has failed in its bid to prevent a site it owns in Knocknacarra being added to the Vacant Sites Register.
The ruling by An Bord Pleanála means that Cairn Homes Properties Ltd is liable to pay a levy of 7% of the market value of the site at Upper Ballymoneen Road for 2019 and each subsequent year it lies undeveloped.
The site was valued at €400,000 earlier this year, meaning the company already owes the Council €28,000 for 2019.
The Vacant Sites Register came into effect in 2018 – it is designed to force builders to develop their residential landholdings in areas where there is a need for housing and the site is lying idle.
Under the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015, the City Council formed the opinion that the greenfield site – beside the Fana Buí estate – had been vacant for a minimum of 12 months.
The Council said that housing supply remained below demand requirements despite the upturn in construction (before the Covid-19 outbreak).
“The scale of unmet housing needs has grown over the period of the previous and current City Development Plan and requires an increase in housing output,” the Council said.
Cairn Homes subsequently appealed that decision to An Bord Pleanála and said the site formed part of a larger landholding on the western side of the Ballymoneen Road for which they were planning an application under Strategic Housing Development legislation, where plans for more than 100 homes or 200 student bed spaces are lodged directly with An Bord Pleanála rather than the local authority.
The company said the proposed N6 Galway City Ring Road bisects the northern section of the site and without a detailed design of the road, it could not progress the planning application.
The Council told the Board that Cairn Homes had sufficient information on the ring road to allow them advance a planning application – details of site access were provided by Arup, the consultants behind the ring road plan.
However, the Board ruled that the site is vacant, paving the way for it to be added to the register.
“It is evident that the bypass route does not directly impact upon the subject vacant site. The subject site is accessible from the Ballymoneen Road and, therefore, is not reliant on the bypass for access.
“I am not satisfied that an application for residential development could not be progressed on the subject lands pending the resolution of the final layout of the bypass if approved.
“Development could be progressed on a phased basis in accordance with an overall masterplan, with a first phase on the subject site. This in my view would not constitute piecemeal development.
“It is also detailed that the appellant has been proactively progressing a masterplan for the site and has carried out a number of surveys including topographical survey, site investigations, ecological assessment and archaeological assessment and, therefore, that the lands are not idle. Having regard to the nature of the surveys described by the appellant, I am satisfied that these do not constitute development works. The lands remain vacant or idle,” Senior Planning Inspector Erika Casey ruled.
Major investors in Cairn Homes – where the former CEO of KBC Bank serves on the board – include Moore Capital, which is operated by Wall Street billionaire Louis Bacon; JP Morgan Asset Management; Lansdowne Partners and GLG Partners, some of the biggest investment fund managers in Britain.
Cairn’s CEO and founder is Michael Stanley, a director and former CEO of Stanley Holdings – the company behind the controversial Belmayne development in North Dublin, which was launched at the height of the boom in 2007 by footballer Jamie Redknapp and his popstar wife, Louise.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
The new Salmon Weir pedestrian and cycle bridge will be officially opened to the public next Friday, May 26.
Work on the €10 million bridge got underway in April 2022, before the main structure was hoisted into place in early December.
A lunchtime tape-cutting ceremony will take place on Friday, as the first pedestrians and cyclists traverse the as-yet-unnamed bridge.
The Chief Executive of Galway City Council, Brendan McGrath, previously said the bridge, once opened, would remove existing conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and traffic “as well as facilitating the Cross-City Link public transport corridor over the existing 200-year-old bridge”.
The naming of the new bridge has been under discussion by the Council’s Civic Commemorations Committee since late last year.
One name that has been in the mix for some time is that of the first woman in Europe to graduate with an engineering degree – Alice Perry.
Ms Perry, who was from Wellpark, graduated from Queen’s College Galway (now University of Galway) in 1906. The university’s engineering building is named in her honour.
The bridge was built by Jons Civil Engineering firm in County Meath and was assembled off-site before being transported to Galway. Funding for the project was provided in full by the National Transport Authority and the European Regional Development Fund.
(Photo: Sheila Gallagher captured the city’s new pedestrian footbridge being raised on the south side of the Salmon Weir Bridge in December. It will officially open next Friday, May 26).
From the Galway City Tribune – Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Kieran O’Donnell was labelled a “disgrace” for overturning councillors’ decisions to rezone land in the new City Development Plan.
Minister O’Donnell (pictured) confirmed in a letter to Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath last week that he was reversing 25 material alternations made by councillors to the CDP 2023-29. He made the decision on the advice of Office of Planning Regulator (OPR).
Minister O’Donnell directed that 14 land parcels that were subject to land-use zoning changes by councillors as part of the Material Alterations to the Draft CDP should be reversed.
He directed that a further 11 land parcels in the city should become “unzoned”.
The Minister found that the CDP had not been made in a manner consistent with recommendations of the OPR, which required specific changes to the plan to ensure consistency with the national planning laws and guidelines.
At last week’s Council meeting Cllr Eddie Hoare (FG) asked for clarity on the process by which councillors could rezone the lands that had been changed by the Minister’s direction.
Cllr Declan McDonnell said, “What he [Minister O’Donnell] has done is an absolute disgrace”.
And he asked: “Do we have to have another development plan meeting to deal with it?”
Both Cllrs Hoare and McDonnell wondered what would become of the lands that were rezoned or unzoned by the ministerial direction.
Mr McGrath said the Council had put forward an argument in favour of retaining the material alterations in the plan, but ultimately the Minister sided with OPR.
He said if councillors want to make alterations to the new plan, they could go through the process of making a material alteration but this was lengthy.
The Save Roscam Peninsula campaign welcomed the Minister’s decision.
In a statement to the Galway City Tribune, it said the direction would mean the Roscam village area on the Roscam Peninsula will be unzoned and a number of land parcels would revert back to agriculture/high amenity.
A spokesperson for the campaign said: “the material alterations made by city councillors following lobbying by developers continued the long-standing practice of councillors facilitating a developer-led plan rather than an evidence- and policy-based plan that meets the needs of the city.
“The Minister’s direction is an important step in restoring confidence in the planning system. It is clear from the City Council’s own evidence on future housing projections that there was no requirement to zone these lands for residential purposes in order to meet the needs of the targeted population increase up to 2029,” the spokesperson added.
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