The Dublin Docklands Development Authority has deferred a decision on whether a controversial proposal for hundreds of apartments in Spencer Dock can go ahead in its present form.
The DDDA board decided it wanted more information from the Spencer Dock development consortium, headed by Treasury Holdings, before allowing the scheme to proceed.
The board could give the go-ahead under Section 25 of the Dublin Docklands Authority Act, 1997, which allows any planning proposal for the area which complies with the original scheme to be exempt from the requirement to obtain planning permission.
The planning proposal for the apartments, many of which were sold off the plans before Christmas, has generated controversy.
Independent TD, Mr Tony Gregory, said that one of the requirements in the original master plan was that the site should provide for 20 per cent social and affordable units.
"Not only do the apartments not have the required permission, provision was not made for the social and affordable units. The Spencer Dock Group proposed that they be located on a different site separated from the Spencer Dock scheme by a seven-storey office block," he said.
He said this was regarded by local community representatives on the Docklands Council as an attempt to segregate the social units rather than integrate them as envisaged in the master plan. They opposed the proposal.
"As a local TD and member of the Docklands Council I am calling for the rejection of the Spencer Dock segregationalist proposal," Mr Gregory said.
Mr Gregory said the developers wanted the apartments, for which they had already taken deposits, to be an exclusive enclave.
In November, buyers put deposits on 530 apartments. For some buyers, the attraction was that they only had to pay a booking fee of €5,000, a further €15,000 when the contracts were completed three weeks later, and the balance when the homes are ready to move into in 2005. People were buying at today's prices, whereas the market is expected to go higher over the next two years.
Construction of the apartments, on the old CIÉ freight marshalling yard, is due to begin this year.