A PLAN to demolish the 38-year-old Northside shopping centre in Coolock, Dublin 5 and build a new centre as part of a €1 billion proposal for a “Northside Town Centre” has been appealed to An Bord Pleanála.
Four parties have appealed the scheme being developed by N1 Property Holdings Ltd, the property vehicle of Brian O’Farrell,which incorporates a 16-storey office tower. The appellants are Riverside Residents Group, Thomas P Broughan TD, BNY Trust Co and Colm and John McKenna.
Designed by Murray O’Laoire architects, the first phase of the scheme involves a new shopping centre of 63,728sq m (685,962sq ft), 940 residential units, a pool and leisure centre in one building, a community centre and library, HSE medical centre and a creche. In phase two, the old Northside shopping centre would be demolished and a further 11,924sq m (128,349sq ft) of retail built in a pedestrianised zone that connects with the civic plaza, community buildings and retail centre.There would also be a cinema, sports bar and restaurant, a landmark office tower, creche and 400 residential units.
In its appeal to the planning board, Riverside Residents Group requests an oral hearing, and says the scheme would have “significant impact” on the locality “due to the immense size of the development”.
They ask that no building should commence until a proposed new road from the Oscar Traynor Road through the IDA Willsborough/Clonshaugh estate to meet the N32 has been constructed.
The residents also say they are “strongly opposed” to the 16-storey block which they call “obtrusive” and “dominant” and which is less than 90m from homes on Riverside Road. As a community they are “not averse to change”, but a development of this magnitude “is not welcome”.
Former majority stakeholder of the Northside shopping centre, BNY Trust company, says it doesn’t object in principle to the scheme but says it fails to take into account “the existing relationship between the Northside shopping centre and the surrounding community”.
It says that the residential element is deficient in relation to apartment sizes and “there will be considerable impact on human beings that has not been adequately addressed . . . specifically in relation to the relocation of the existing Cromcastle Court residents and the lack of a primary school”.
It says that the shopping centre has been at the centre of the Cromcastle community for some time and “is ingrained in the psyche of the local population. The proposal to move the shopping centre to a location that is currently part of Clonshaugh Industrial Estate will irrevocably alter the relationship between the shopping centre and the surrounding community.”
