HOME BUILDER CAIRN Homes is to lodge plans in the coming days for a scaled back 510 unit apartment scheme for its Montrose site at RTÉ.

The planning application by Cairn Homes Montrose Ltd reduces by 98 the number of apartments from the permitted 608 unit scheme which secured the green light in July 2023 from An Bord Pleanála.

The new scheme, to be lodged with Dublin City Council, is made up of 326 two-bed apartments, 125 one-bed apartments, 51 three-bed apartments and eight studios across eight apartment blocks.

Three of the apartment blocks will rise to 10 storeys in height.

The 10-year planning permission granted by An Bord Pleanála in July 2023 gave the go-ahead for 608 apartments in nine blocks ranging in height from two storeys to 10 storeys and comprising 272 build to sell units and 336 build to rent.

In the split decision, the appeals board refused permission for a ‘landmark’ 16-storey tower component of the scheme that was to include a 192-bedroom hotel and 80 apartments.

However, in the new revised planning application, Cairn Montrose has given notice that it is to seek the omission of two planning conditions relating to the ‘build to rent’ covenants from all units. 

In one condition No 7 attached by ABP which Cairn is now seeking to have deleted, it ordered that a legal agreement be put in place by  Cairn which confirms that the Build-to-Rent units permitted shall remain owned and operated by an institutional entity for a minimum period of not less than 15 years and where no individual Build-to-Rent residential units shall be sold separately for that period.

In January of this year, Cairn commenced works on the first phase of its permitted scheme and the move by the home-builder to commence construction works came almost eight years after Cairn Homes agreed a €107.5m deal with RTE in June 2017 to purchase just under nine acres of lands at RTE’s Donnybrook headquarters.

The initial phase of work has consisted of residential construction in the northwest corner of the site and also enabling works for the future development of the wider site, as well as the start of residential development within one of the blocks, Block 10 which is to comprise 15 residential units.

The new Large Scale Residential Development (LRD) application is behind schedule as Cairn Homes told the appeals board last year that it intended lodging the plans in the first quarter of 2025 to address the omission of Block 5, the 16-storey tower containing the planned hotel.

Cairn told the appeals board that it is intended that the new application would include the reinstatement of Block 5, “albeit with reduced height, amended design and potentially amended uses”. 

However, Block 5 does not feature in the new LRD scheme.

Cairn Homes’ plans for the former RTÉ site have met with strong local opposition and Cairn Homes Montrose told An Bord Pleanála last year “there is a high risk of litigation against a future grant of permission, having regard to the history of litigation against a previous permission”.