Dublin City Council has approved a controversial plan to redevelop the site of the former Garda station at Harcourt Terrace, Dublin 2 into a high-rise office and residential scheme, writes Edel Morgan.

Harcourt Terrace Ltd, a subsidiary of the Durkan Group, got planning permission to demolish all the buildings on the site and build nine office blocks and two apartment buildings, rising to nine storeys. However, a planning condition requires that the developer omits a proposed four-storey office block at the northern end of the site to protect local residential amenity.

It asks that the developer submit revised proposals for an office or residential development on this part of the site which would be subject to a separate planning application.

The development will occupy the site of Harcourt Terrace Garda station, the Film Censor's Office and the former Dairy Science Laboratory, which Durkans acquired last year in exchange for providing over 400 affordable homes in new housing schemes in south-west Dublin.

As well as a nine-storey office block, there will be two apartment buildings, of five and seven storeys high, with an underground car-park with 86 spaces.

Altogether, the scheme would provide 43 apartments - a mix of mainly one and two-bedroom units - and 12,714sq m (136,854sq ft) of office space.

Dublin City Council received around 21 objections to the scheme, including one from An Taisce which said that the scheme would need to be revised to take account of "the unique and sensitive environment of Harcourt Terrace and the scale and pattern of development on the Grand Canal frontage".