Reply To: Heuston Gate model

Parlon plan takes a knock

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OPW SUPREMO Tom Parlon has been tripped up by Dublin City Council and the planning regulations with his ambitious plans for the major €500 million cultural, commercial and residential development near Heuston Station, Kilmainham, Dublin.

To maximise the benefits to the taxpayer and Eircom, which owns some of the site, the OPW has submitted plans for the development which will include 650 apartments. In this way Mr Parlon hopes that the State can get significantly more than if the site was sold without securing planning permission.

However, the profits now look set to be delayed for the Heuston Gate part of the development. Dublin City Council has declared the planning application for this section to be invalid, although hopes are high of a green light for the Westgate section.

Anyone who has been reading the planning news in the Irish Independent property pages will know that such invalid declarations can happen for trivial mistakes like an omission of a wording in the planning notices and the OPW has since published a fresh notice and is submitting a fresh application. However, it’s something of a surprise that it should happen to the OPW, considering that Minister Parlon was just recently presented with OPW’s quality certification IS-EN-ISO 9001:2002 by his colleague Minister for Finance, Charlie McCreevy.