Dropped appeal clears path for €130 million Doughiska development

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Galway daily news Plans progress for €130 million Doughiska development

Plans for a €130 million development in Doughiska consisting of apartments, office space, and a hotel can proceed after an appeal to An Bord Pleanála has been withdrawn.

Evolution Holdings received planning permission from the city council on May 7 for six blocks of buildings ranging from three to seven storeys tall at Sraith Fhada in Doughiska.

These would include four blocks of apartments with 130 ‘build to let’ units, a hotel with 122 guest bedrooms and 12 apartment suites, and a 12,000m² office block with a café/bistro on the the ground floor.

Other amenities in the design include a creche and a six storey car park building with 351 parking spaces as well as basketball and handball courts and an exercise area at the roof level.

An additional 231 surface level car parking spaces and 155 cycle spaces will be spread through the rest of the Doughiska site.

Evolution and DRA Community Development Company had appealed against a condition of planning permission from the city council to An Bord Pleanála.

The city council required that, on an adjacent strip of ground to the south side of the development, the developer must “submit to, and agree in writing with the Planning Authority, a final detailed landscaping scheme for the site”.

This should include “recreational facilities, including a multi use games area and to include for facilities to account for the Primary Cycle Network linear land use objective on site”.

Their appeals said that this condition “refers to lands which are outside the curtilage of the site which is the subject of the planning application” and are “not in the ownership of the developer”

In response to the appeal the city council said that including this portion of land is “critical to the provision of an adequate standard of amenity space when viewed from a qualitative, functional, and accessibility perspective in the context if the very intense, mixed use nature of the development.”

The council said that this transport link is necessary because of the “likely level of significant population – both working and residential (including commercial residential) on the overall lands.”

Both appeals have since been unconditionally withdrawn, leaving no obstacles in the path of Doughiska project.

Before work can begin Evolution must pay €1.724 million to the city council as a contribution towards the cost of services to the development.

A further €325,000 for roads, footpaths, public lighting, water mains and other infrastructure related to the project must be paid over to the council.

In total the city council attached 40 conditions to the grant of planning permission.