Donnybrook residents have challenged plans for a development of 196 apartments and houses behind Sach's Hotel in Dublin 4. Edel Morgan reports.

Morehampton Terrace Residents Association and Carlisle Avenue Residents are looking to overturn planning permission granted by Dublin City Council last month.

A Galway property developer who got planning permission last year for a relatively low density residential and office complex on a 4.45-acre site on the other side of Bloomfield Avenue has also submitted an appeal to An Bord Pleanála.

Edward Holdings says that, while it engaged in extensive consultation with Dublin City Council before getting planning permission on the former Quaker hospital site, "there has been minimal consultation in relation to the design of a scheme for the subject site".

Bryan Cullen of Jackson Homes bought the 3.6-acre site with frontage on Bloomfield Avenue and Morehampton Road for €20 million last year from the Discalced Carmelite Fathers. It is on part of a nine-acre front lawn of the Avila Retreat Centre beside the Royal Hospital in Donnybrook. Planning permission was granted by Dublin City Council last month for 182 apartments in four six-storey apartment buildings, 14 houses and a crèche. It also involves 35 surface car-parking spaces, 158 basement car-parking spaces and 200 bicycle spaces.

Two-thirds of the houses on Carlisle Avenue will face the proposed development and residents are appealing on the grounds of the "excessive" height of the apartment blocks which will be "extremely intrusive" and cause overlooking from windows and balconies. The residents are calling for a reduction in height of the blocks by two stories.

It says the density of 134.2 dwellings per hectare is too high and asked that the existing tree cover to the west side of the site on Avila grounds be retained.

Morehampton Terrace Residents Association is also appealing on the grounds of density and height, saying the proposed development will be taller than Sach's Hotel and the former monastery building in Avila, and will overlook rear bedrooms on Morehampton Terrace.

It said the scheme would "do enormous aesthetic damage" to the conservation area and "make a mockery of existing conservation work and regulations".

Another appellant, Edward Holdings, headed by Gerard Barrett, secured permission for a luxury residential development of more than 60 units and 3,162 sq m (34,035 sq ft) of offices on a nearby site in February last year.

The developer amended its original proposal following a further information request from Dublin City Council reducing it in scale from 70 residential units to 66 and from 4,200 sq m (45,208 sq ft) of office space to 3,162 sq m (34,035 sq ft).

Edward Holdings also agreed to build a €22.86 million nursing home on a 10-acre site at Stocking Lane in Rathfarnham in part exchange for the Bloomfield Hospital site, owned by the Religious Society of Friends. It is believed there was also a payment of around €5 million to the society.

Edward Holdings has appealed on the grounds that the proposed development interrupts the setting of the Carmelite convent and fails to properly integrate contemporary style within an historic setting. It says "an arbitrary line was drawn across the site and along no obvious or natural boundary. This has the effect of dissecting the site providing an inappropriate setting for both the current site and the remainder of the Carmelite landholding."

It says the layout of the development, which is principally arranged around four blocks, forming a courtyard, "in design terms gives little consideration to how this space would be used by both residents and members of the public".

While Edward Holdings got permission for a relative low density scheme with blocks no higher than five storeys, "this is entirely contrary to what is now proposed on the opposite side of the road where blocks of apartments of mammoth scale and proportions will completely interrupt the architectural theme of the area", says the appeal. While Edward Holdings got permission for a mix of office and residential uses, Jackson Homes was allowed build a scheme that is purely residential with an open space that is "inaccessible to the public. . .as required by Z15 zoning".