A legal challenge taken by Bartra against the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County development plan has been dismissed by the High Court.
Property developer Bartra had challenged the council’s decision to change the zoning of Bullock Harbour to exclude residential development.
Bartra tried to claim the rezoning, which was proposed by Councillors, was motivated by “personal animus”.
The decision is the latest setback for Bartra who have attempted in the past to demolish and clear the existing industrial single-storey warehouses and sheds in order to develop a mixed-use development at the former Western Marine building in Dalkey.
Their previous proposal lodged in 2021 also included the construction of a three-storey building incorporating a cafe and one four-bedroom apartment, a single-storey seafood sales outlet, four fishermen’s huts, a new public square and three three-storey detached houses.
That plan was a revised proposal from its old, more extensive scheme which originally received planning permission from An Bord Pleanala in 2019.
However, a local campaign group filed for a judicial review of ABP’s decision and the planning authority withdrew from the case before it could be heard, effectively voiding the approval
In March 2022, Barta was refused permission for their planned development by the council.
A report released by DLRCC explained that permission was rejected on a number of grounds, which included how the location is “potentially liable to flood events and significant wave overtopping,” according to the 2016 -2022 Strategic Flood Risk Assessment.
“The proposed development has not included adequate measures to minimise flood risk, and has not included adequate measures to ensure that residual risks to the area and/or development can be managed to an acceptable level.
“The other three reasons cover the predominance of residential over marine related uses, lack of integrated design incorporating waterfront harbour facilities, and the failure to respond to the special character of this harbour site,” the report said.
“It is therefore considered that the development as proposed would seriously compromise the harbour’s ability to attract and maintain good marine related uses and harbour activities, would limit the scale and diversity of such uses, which the harbour could support.
“The planning authority therefore considers that the development as proposed would be contrary to the zoning objective for this location of providing for waterfront development and marine related uses,” the council said.
In 2023 An Bord Pleanála then rejected an appeal by Bartra against the decision of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to refuse planning permission for its proposal.
An Bord Pleanála said the zoning of the site was ‘to provide for waterfront development and/or harbour-related uses’ under the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Development Plan 2022-2028.
For that reason, it said, Bartra’s plans would materially contravene the zoning objective as residential use of the site was ‘not permitted in principle’ or ‘open for consideration’ within such zoning at Bulloch Harbour.
In this latest current case, Barta had challenged the DLR development plan claiming that the decision to adopt a proposed amendment was invalid because of a failure to give adequate reasons, a failure to take account of relevant considerations, taking account of irrelevant considerations, and improper discrimination or singling out of the applicant’s lands.
However, in a judgement delivered last Wednesday (4th) Mr Justice Barry O’Donnell said he was not persuaded by the arguments made out by Bartra in its application.
“This court is not concerned with the merits of the decision; instead the focus must be on the process that led to and informed the decision,” he said.
“The obligation to avoided engagement with the merits seems to me to be heightened when the decision under challenge is one made as part of the policy function of an elected deliberative assembly.”
Richard Boyd Barrett, TD for People Before Profit and Chairperson of Save Our Seafront, welcomed the decision.
“The High Court’s dismissal of Bartra’s challenge to DLR’s county development plan is a brilliant victory for people power,” he said.
“For nearly a decade residents and harbour users alongside community groups including Save Bulloch Harbour and Save Our Seafront have fought to protect Bulloch Harbour from the utterly inappropriate plan for luxury villas in this small working harbour and unique public amenity.
“There have been a number of planning permissions (all variations on the same theme of luxury villas), and at each stage the people of the area mobilised themselves, attended public meetings, made submissions and lobbied their elected representatives to ensure this harbour was protected as a public amenity.
“All the developments proposed would have essentially privatised and made exclusive a large part of this much loved and used amenity.
“I want to commend the local community, groups such as Save Bulloch Harbour and Save Our Seafront for their determined campaigning efforts and Cllr Melisa Halpin for putting forward the motion to re-zone the harbour and protect it from this kind of inappropriate profit driven development.”
Cllr Melisa Halpin, Convenor of Save Our Seafront, added: “It’s just fantastic that this challenge to the County Development Plans has been quashed.
“The making of the plan is one of the few powers that councillors have.
“It is the only opportunity for councillors to re zone and move to protect areas from inappropriate development.