Planning application for the Tribeca scheme submitted for renewal

A PLANNING application for the controversial Tribeca scheme in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter has been submitted for renewal.

A decision to grant it, however, is still to be made.

The scheme has come under the spotlight over the lack of progress since it was first submitted in 2020.

Plans for Tribeca would see 10 acres of Belfast city centre close to St Anne’s Cathedral redeveloped. The £500m scheme would include residential, business and commercial spaces.

Castlebrooke Investments — the owner of the land and proposed developer of the site — was granted planning permission for Tribeca in 2020, but construction has not yet started.

Last June, Castlebrooke said it was still trying to deliver a “commercially viable development”, adding that “nobody is more frustrated than us at the pace of progress with this scheme”.

Belfast City Council said they received an application to “renew the Tribeca Phase 1B full planning permission and applications to renew three associated applications” in early March.

In January it emerged that the council was to write to Castlebrooke with expressions of interest in vesting the site.

Vesting is acquiring land without agreement and is also known as “compulsory purchase”.

The council said at the time that vesting was a “complicated process” and “a vesting order is generally only granted when it has proved extremely difficult to acquire the land by negotiated agreement with the owner.”

According to a briefing paper prepared for the council’s Strategic Policy and Resources Committee (SPR) earlier this year, if a vesting order is granted, the council would have to pay compensation to the landowner.

A spokesperson from Castlebrooke said that, to date, no official communication or proposals have been made by Belfast City Council to the investors over any expressions to vest the site.

“For the last five years, we have engaged regularly with BCC about a potential civic use for the building which we remain open to, if suitable commercial terms can be agreed,” a spokesperson said.

Earlier this month, BCC came under pressure to save an at-risk listed building which is located within the area owned by Castlebrooke, earmarked for renovation under the Tribeca project.

The 250-year-old Assembly Rooms, a listed building on the corner of North Street and Waring Street, was described as in a “catastrophic” condition.

A campaign group called on the council “to take immediate remedial action” and restore the derelict building, which it described as “potential prey for arsonists”.

The Assembly Rooms Alliance added that any planning application renewals for the site should not be granted.

The group, headed by John Gray from Reclaim the Enlightenment charity, said that the firm behind Tribeca should “do the decent thing by donating the building to the people of Belfast.”

The group wants to see the building transformed into a Troubles and peace museum.

It said it would be looking into acquiring the building independently if “no timely progress” was made by the council.

The building, which dates back to 1769, was added to the Ulster Architectural Heritage’s at-risk register in 2003.