A planning application for phase one of what amounts to a new town, near Shankill in south Co Dublin, has been lodged with Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council.
The mixed-use application envisages more than 500 houses with a neighbourhood centre comprising retail, community and commercial uses on a 25-acre site beside Woodbrook Golf Club.
The application notes the proposed development, which borders the Dart line, is "the first phase in the development of the overall Woodbrook local area plan lands" which amount to 52 acres, and encompass the former juvenile detention centre at Shanganagh Castle.
The application was lodged by Aeval Ltd, a company associated with developer Joe O'Reilly of Castlethorn Developments.
According to the planning application, phase one will comprise three "character areas": a neighbourhood square, a central residential area and a housing area. The neighbourhood square is to include 70 residential units and 10,386 square metres of non-residential floor space, generally for commercial, retail, community and leisure use.
Buildings are to be arranged around a civic plaza and will rise from two to five storeys with a set-back penthouse on the sixth floor. Apartment blocks would front on to a "main street" with service and distributor roads routed around the neighbourhood square. The central residential area includes 374 apartments and duplexes in seven blocks up to six storeys high.
The housing area comprises 120 duplexes and houses laid out in an informal grid pattern and ranging up to four storeys. Parking for more than 400 cars is to be provided.
It is also proposed there would be a significant "green" element to the development with the use of a district heating system, powered by a wood pellet boiler system and rooftop solar panels.
The land was sold to Aeval last June by long-time local land-owner Sir Henry Sursock Cochrane. It is bounded to the west by the old Dublin Road and St James's Church, with Shanganagh Cemetery to the north, the golf club to the east and Croke Lodge and woodland to the south.
The planning application notes that works will require the "partial removal of trees and the existing boundary wall" along the old Dublin Road at the western boundary.
The Woodbrook development is one of two major developments proposed for the area, the second being the €2 billion Pizarro development planned for the former Bray Golf Club site, which straddles the Dublin and Wicklow border in Bray town.
With its local area plan covering Woodbrook, Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council said it was conscious the site was just north of Bray town and a suitable site for "a new residential community based around a transport interchange".
The transport interchange envisages a connection between the adjacent Dart line and a proposed Luas extension which is scheduled to serve Bray - via the Pizarro development - by 2016.
The site is also close to the M11 Shankill bypass and Shankill village. Earlier this year, a Bord Pleanála inspector recommended refusal of the Pizarro development citing, among other reasons, transport grounds.
