LABOUR Party councillor Joe Leddin has expressed disappointment that a request for another High Court judicial review has been lodged against a €30 million student accommodation complex at Punches Cross.
The planning application from Cloncarragh Developments to construct a housing development on a 0.77 hectares brownfield site, in close proximity to Mary Immaculate College, was approved in March this year.
The revised planning application, which was subject to an oral hearing in the High Court, was resubmitted to An Bord Pleanála for final determination late last year. The development is set to include provision for 30 build-to-rent apartments and 326 student bed spaces (70 apartments).
However, Environmental Trust Ireland (ETI) has now sought to challenge permission granted to Cloncarragh Developments to construct a housing development — weeks on from getting the go-ahead from An Bord Pleanála for a second time.
Cllr Leddin considers this as a “purely deliberate attempt to further delay the urgent need to develop this derelict site and provide much needed accommodation for students”.
“The request also demonstrates the need to change our planning laws so that we don’t continue to have sites laying idle all over the country that offer the potential for housing,” he told the Limerick Post.
“I would ask have Environment Trust Ireland given any consideration to the fact that there are old oil tanks buried in the ground at this site and by continuing to try and delay development they are actually contributing to further environmental damage by prolonging this application process?
“The delay in redeveloping the site is compounding the misery for hundreds of students looking to study in Limerick but unable to source suitable accommodation. I hope the judge throws out this request without further delay,” he added.
In response, President of Environmental Trust Ireland Michelle Hayes hit out at what she described as Cllr Leddin’s “inflammatory and untrue comments” and “his glaring personalised attacks on environmental defenders”.
“Highlighting planning irregularities by making independent, open, and transparent submissions and seeking a judicial review to the High Court is a fundamental and democratic right and it is completely inappropriate for Cllr Joe Leddin to interfere with that process,” Ms Hayes insisted.
She said the City West representative has gone too far in his statement.
“The European Commission has been very critical of the ‘increasingly aggressive stance’ being taken against environmental defenders in Ireland, such as Environmental Trust Ireland, by politicians and others,” Ms Hayes said.
“Serious questions now need to be asked in relation to the involvement of politicians with developers and how this manifests itself in the planning process in Limerick, even after a successful High Court Judicial Review by Environmental Trust Ireland.
“There was never a Planning Tribunal in Limerick and it is time that a full investigation into planning decisions and how they are reached in Limerick is conducted by an external independent investigative body,” she concluded.
