Gordon Deegan
Broadcaster, Pat Kenny has stated that he is “taken aback by the scale, bulk and size” of a five-storey 104 bedroom nursing home proposed for lands beside his Dalkey home in south Dublin.
The application by Richard Barrett’s Bartra Capital for its Yonder nursing home shows it rising from two to five storeys and comes 18 months after Bartra secured the approval for 18 apartments and six houses on the 1.4-acre Yonder site.
Bartra only obtained planning permission from An Bord Pleanála after a planning battle with local residents, including Pat Kenny and his wife, Cathy over the apartment scheme.
Surprise
The nursing home plan replaces the apartment plan proposal for the site and in an interview on Tuesday on the planned nursing home, Mr Kenny said: “I was surprised to see this new application and taken aback by the scale, bulk and size of such an enterprise in an in-fill site in a residential area.”
Mr Kenny said that at five storeys in places, the scheme is one storey higher than the original apartment plan proposal.
He said the planned development site is surrounded by 10 householders’ back gardens, describing what is proposed "is the equivalent of dropping a 104 bedroom hospital" into a residential area.
Mr Kenny said he is “certain” that he will be lodging a submission with Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council on the plan.
Sensitively designed
In the planning documents lodged by Thornton O’Connor Town Planning, Patricia Thornton states that the nursing home scheme has been sensitively designed to minimise the potential impact on the residential amenity of surrounding properties.
As part of her 55-page planning report lodged with the application, Ms Thornton contends that what is proposed represents a significant investment in an under-utilised infill site providing “a much-needed nursing home facility for the area”.
She says the principal objective of the application is to contribute towards reducing the shortage of residential care home beds.
A decision is due on the application in March and if Bartra is unsuccessful with the nursing home scheme it can still proceed with its apartment plan for the site.
