Joint agents Knight Frank and Raymond Potterton are guiding a price of €6 million for Skylark Hill, a contemporary period-style residence on 27.8 hectares (68.8 acres) of lands with considerable future development potential in the fast-growing town of Newcastle, Co Dublin.
Accessed off Newcastle Boulevard, Skylark Hill is accessed via a tree-lined avenue set on landscaped and manicured grounds. Built in 2002, the house extends to 790sq m (8,560sq ft) of living accommodation, and comes equipped with a large indoor swimming-pool complex and triple-car garage, on private grounds of 2.5 hectares (6 acres). The holding also includes a partially-built hotel structure and double-level basement, the majority of which was constructed in 2008. A 9m-wide roadway was constructed from the entrance to the hotel site and the joint selling agents say it is their understanding that the site is serviced with mains water (200mm), foul sewer (150mm), natural gas main (100mm) and surface-water drains. Interested parties are advised however to satisfy themselves in relation to the provision of these services.
Some 18 hectares (45 acres) of the lands at Skylark Hill are currently in tillage. The lands contain an aquifer at 47m with a daily-pumping capacity of 300,000 litres and a geothermal resource which has been tested at 32 degrees at 1,200ft.
Commenting on the future development potential of the lands, the selling agents note that the population of Newcastle has increased by 32 per cent since the 2016 census to 4,526. With the Development Plan restrictions in relation to Casement Aerodrome to the north of the town, they believe that any logical future growth would be confined to the unrestricted lands to the south where access to the N7 is also located. The Skylark Hill holding is ideally positioned in this regard, they say, with a 0.8km stretch of its northern boundary adjoining existing residential development with services already on site from the holding’s partially complete hotel development.
Recent revisions to the ESRI’s population projections for the State, along with the publication of the draft first revision to the National Planning Framework in July 2024 before the adoption of a revised National Planning Framework later this year, may trigger the need for a variation to the Development Plan, the agents note. Should this happen, the incoming purchaser of Skylark Hill would have the opportunity to engage in this process with a view to securing a potential rezoning of part of the lands. A town planners’ view obtained by the selling agents suggests that any part of the holding that is rezoned as residential would have a density requirement at the lower end of the 35-50 dwellings per hectare range.
