Development has stalled on a number of key sites in Dún Laoghaire, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor.

What on earth is going on in Dún Laoghaire? With controversial plans to redevelop its derelict public baths shelved after loud protests by affronted residents and even more ambitious plans for the equally derelict Carlisle Pier becalmed by a failed procurement process, it looks almost like the revenge of Kingstown.

It is now more than two years since the winning scheme by Heneghan Peng Architects (HPA) for the old mailboat pier was unveiled. Conceived as two long, narrow, glass-fronted blocks flanking a linear public space, it was seen as offering "an architecture of great refinement, elegance and sophistication" in the harbour.

That was the view of the panel of assessors and the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company's board. The public, however, had voted for an avowedly populist proposal by international "starchitect" Daniel Libeskind to replace Carlisle Pier with something resembling a half-submerged ocean liner with its prow up.

What members of the public didn't quite grasp was that the contest was a development package competition, rather than a strictly architectural one, so a lot of other issues had to be taken into account by the assessors before they decided unanimously in favour of the HPA scheme, submitted by Urban Capital.

The proposed development had to be commercially viable, which is why it included a 127-bedroom hotel, 229 apartments, shops and leisure uses, a proposed aquarium - billed as a "marine life centre" - as well as extensive public spaces. "At the end of the day, it has to make money," as HPA's Shih-Fu Peng said.

Urban Capital - run by architect Brian Moran, who blazed a trail in Moscow for Murray O'Laoire in the 1990s - describes itself as "an innovative property development company [ with a] core philosophy that good development emanates from excellent planning and design aligned with a sound financial and market-driven basis for a project".

Its partners in the Carlisle Pier project were Sisk and Park Developments - currently involved in a battle over controversial plans for a marina in Greystones - as well as Hugh O'Regan, best known for developing the Thomas Read pub on Dublin's Parliament Street, Pravda on Liffey Street and the Morrison Hotel on Ormond Quay.

With such heavy-hitters in tow, one might have imagined that the Carlisle Pier scheme would be well under way by now. But even though full details of it are still on the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company's website (www.dlharbour.ie), its board decided last September to withdraw "preferred bidder" status from the consortium.

The State-owned harbour company said Urban Capital had failed to meet the timetable for submitting an acceptable planning application. Though pre-planning discussions had been held with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, the date for lodging the application had twice been postponed, to facilitate engineering studies.

Urban Capital countered that it had already invested €1.5 million in the project and would have had to put another €2 million into it, without this being underpinned by a final project agreement with the harbour company. It also referred to the "planning context" in Dún Laoghaire having changed over the previous 18 months.

This was clearly a reference to the storm of public protest whipped up by the Save Our Seafront (SOS) campaign against the county council's highly contentious proposals for the baths site. SOS, led by experienced agitator Richard Boyd Barrett, had also pledged to fight the Carlisle Pier plan as a part "privatisation" of the harbour.

The council's architects and planners had put forward plans in May 2005 to replace the derelict sea baths with an indoor swimming and leisure complex, infilling five acres of Scotsman's Bay for a "maritime park", and to pay for this by developing 180 apartments stepping up to eight storeys, with shops and cafés at ground-floor level.

But SOS branded the plan as "an underhand and shameful attempt to privatise the public seafront" by putting "a huge, exclusive, privately-owned barrier between the coast road and the sea". It opposes "any development that would obscure the sea view or damage the coastal vista" and wants to see the old baths developed as a public amenity.

It is, of course, undeniable that the scheme would have fundamentally altered this stretch of the seafront as well as existing vistas in the area. Terraced stucco-fronted houses facing the promenade at Newtownsmith, which currently enjoy open sea views, would have been most directly affected by the scale and bulk of the proposal.

As if evoking the "not an inch" spirit of old Kingstown, incensed local residents took part in colourful protest marches and made it clear to the council that this was something they would not put up with. Loudhailers, car horns and whistles were all used to underline public opposition as councillors debated the issue last October.

With this racket ringing in their ears from the street outside and under the watchful eye of a packed public gallery, Fine Gael and Labour councillors voted solidly in favour of examining alternatives to the scheme, with Fianna Fáil voting against and the Green Party, PD and independent councillors abstaining. It was now dead in the water.

The latest plans, agreed in principle last month, include a public swimming pool and the renovation and landscaping of existing walkways around Scotsman's Bay. Commercial uses - such as a restaurant, tearooms and spa facilities - are also envisaged, but the plans specifically exclude any high-rise residential elements on the baths site.

Councillors agreed that the first phase of the plan, to carry out a technical examination of the breakwater with a view to developing a strategy for dealing with erosion, should go ahead with full funding from the council. However, there are serious doubts about whether the redevelopment plan would attract exchequer or EU funding.

As for the future of Carlisle Pier, a spokesman for the Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company told The Irish Times that it was involved in detailed discussions with the county council and a number of potential developers and "hopes to be in a position to announce progress within months and certainly before the end of the year".

Urban Capital's Brian Moran takes a cautiously optimistic view. "The project is a very good project and I'd like to think it could be resurrected at some point in the near future." However, even if a deal is done to reactive it, the scheme would still have to go through the normal planning process, running the gauntlet of opposition from SOS.