A return to philantropic housing…. by Tesco

This is a very live issue in the context of the key worker regime incentives that protect nurses, civil servants etc in London whereby affordable housing is not a lottery type gimmic based on quite large salaries when enforced at all.

I think Tesco being excluded like all retailers from the key worker incentives have identified that staff turnover at middle management level is costing them more in training costs and operational inefficiencies than provding subsidised accomodation for a select bunch of hot shots who will sell themselves cheaply in return for cheap housing. A 1 bed apartment here would cost £1,300 pcm and as oyster doesn’t apply to this area you also get fried on commuting costs.

It would be nice to think that the development at Sandymount is philanthropic. Unfortunately the application (6664/06) makes no mention of the 23 apartments being for staff. It reduces the size of the Tesco store substantially (25% less retail space) and appears to be for company gain.

It proposes a 5 storey over basement development with a plot ratio of over 2.3 in an area of mainly residential two storey nineteenth and twentireth century housing in a mix match of styles and materials.

It appears to be ill conceived.

Refused outright on 4 counts:

1. The proposed development would by virtue of its scale, bulk, visual prominence in the streetscape have a significant negative impact on the visual amenities of the area and on the character of this designated conservation area. The proposed development would therefore be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.

2. The proposed development would by virtue of its scale, design including the provision of balconies and relationship to residential properties to the north and north east of the application site, have a significant negative impact on the residential amenities by virtue of overlooking and obtrusive and overbearing visual impact. The proposed development would therefore seriously injure the amenities of these adjacent properties and would be contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area and the residential zoning objective of these areas as indicated in the Development Plan.

3. The layout of the proposed residential accommodation in terms of the amount of quality usable open space to serve the accommodation proposed, the size of the proposed internal courtyard and the aspect and degree of natural lighting available to serve a number of the residential units accessed from this internal courtyard area is considered to be deficient such that it would lead to the creation of a poor quality of residential accommodation and would be contrary to the provisions of Paragraphs 15.9.4 and 15.9.6 of the Dublin City Development Plan 2005-2011, particularly as it relates to the availability of daylight and sunlight and the provision of public and private open space. The proposed development would therefore be contrary to the proper planning and development of this residential area.

4. Based on the information submitted with the application, the applicant has not demonstrated to the satisfaction of the Planning Authority that the potentially conflicting commercial / service delivery and residentially generated traffic movements can be satisfactorily accommodated within the confines of the site and that the development as proposed would not give rise to the creation of traffic congestion and possible traffic hazard in the immediate vicinity of the application site. The proposed development would therefore be contrary to the proper planning and development of the area.