A RECOMMENDATION by the Dublin city manager to rezone land owned by the Dominican Sisters in Cabra for residential development is being opposed by 200 local residents.
The council management is recommending that Z1 residential zoning for part of the 45-acre site near the Navan Road be included in the Dublin City Development Plan 2011-2017 despite having received no request from the property owners to do so.
The proposed rezoning follows a statement this year by assistant city manager Michael Stubbs, who said there was already sufficient residential zoned land in the city to meet demand.
The land is part of the Dominican Campus which includes St Dominick’s College post-primary school, the Dominican convent, the Catholic Institute for the Deaf, Santa Sabina Centre for the Sick and other convent buildings.
The complex also includes the residence of the Papal Nuncio, St Catherine’s primary school and a VEC building, but these are not on lands owned by the Dominicans.
The plot of land in question, a 4.3-acre site fronting on to Abbey Drive, “is surplus to institutional needs” and should be rezoned, the manager’s report said.
In a letter to the council last March, representatives of the Dominican Sisters said it was their preference that the land zoning in the current development plan was retained. The zoning for this plot is currently Z12, which refers to institutional land with future development potential.
However, the council plans to change the meaning of this zoning to “former institutional land”, which the order feels would not be appropriate for their site. Instead it suggested that a Z10B of “outer suburban mixed-use” would be the most suitable of all zonings available in the new development plan.
Local independent councillor Cieran Perry said more than 200 residents had signed a petition opposing the manager’s recommendation. “It is very strange the manager wants this land zoned exclusively residential when it’s not what the Dominicans want.”
He said the proposed building heights in the development plan meant that the site could be open to an apartment complex of six storeys. “This is land between schools and a settled residential area. If apartments are built here people’s houses will be completely overlooked, and the traffic problem, which is already terrible, will only be made worse.”
