Challenge to CPO on Carlton property

A member of the Carlton Group has claimed that it was made clear to him that all the Carlton properties in Dublin's O'Connell Street area would be made subject of a Compulsory Purchase Order (CPO) unless well-known property developer Treasury Holdings Limited (THL) and a related company, Keelgrove, were partners in the the multi-million euro Carlton development project and had a half share.

Mr Paul Clinton, a property developer and member of the Carlton Group, said it was made clear to him, in discussions with THL/Keelgrove, that it was "futile" to try and develop the Carlton Project without THL/Keelgrove and "that nothing was going to happen on O'Connell Street until THL and Keelgrove were partners".

If there was no agreement on a partnership, it was made clear all the Carlton properties would ultimately be the subject of a CPO, he said. "In the events which have happened, these predictions proved prophetic," he added.

He made the claims in an affidavit read by Mr Donal O'Donnell SC at the opening of Mr Clinton's High Court challenge to the making of a CPO which affects several valuable properties owned or part-owned by him in the O'Connell Street area.

The Carlton Group, which includes Mr Clinton and other landowners in the area in question, had planned to utilise the properties in question, which include the Carlton Cinema, for an integrated development.

However, Dublin City Council made a CPO in December 2001 in relation to a site at Upper O'Connell Street, Moore Street, O'Rahilly Parade and Henry Place which CPO was confirmed on January 17th 2003, after an oral hearing, by An Bord Pleanála.

In judicial review proceedings, Mr Clinton, a project manager and member of the Carlton Group, with an address at The Gate Lodge, Ranelagh, Dublin, is challenging that CPO and seeking a number of orders and declarations. The action is against Dublin City Council, An Bord Pleanála and the State.

Opening the proceedings, Mr O'Donnell said the case raised important questions regarding a citizen's property rights and in what circumstances these might be interfered with.

He said the CPO was made without either Dublin City Council or An Bord Pleanála indicating what would happen to the site in question and in the absence of any alternative plan being outlined for its development. If the council and appeal board were entitled to do this, this was a "world event" counsel argued. "For the first time, nothing will beat something." While his clients had experienced some delays with their plans, they had reached stage six of a nine-stage development process at the time the CPO was made, counsel said.

The council had had its own problems with advancing its plans for the development of O'Connell Street, he added. However, from the time his client had secured planning permission in August 1999, there was not a day where he did not have the threat of a CPO hanging over him.

The effect of the CPO was that his clients' personal property rights had been "overridden by nothing", not even the most basic proposal, he said. The council and appeal board had effectively determined, in breach of his clients' property rights, that the task of developing the site in question would pass to an unidentified and unknown private developer with an unidentified development plan, over an unidentified time and for an unidentified purpose.

Mr O'Donnell also said the oral hearing conducted by the planning board was conducted unfairly in that his client was criticised over its failures but there was no attempt to switch the onus onto the council and ask it what it planned to do in the alternative. Among the reliefs being sought by Mr Clinton is an order quashing the decision of the planning board confirming the CPO.

Mr Clinton also wants a declaration that, before any power to compulsorily acquire land can properly arise, the particular purpose for which the lands if being acquired must (1) be fully and accurately stated on the face of the CPO and must (2) have been fully considered by the appeal board. Mr Clinton argues a citizen's constitutionally protected property rights cannot be overridden simply on the payment of compensation.