FITZPATRICK PLAN GIVES ‘TERRACED’ HOUSE NEW MEANING BUT COUNCIL AND LOCALS SAY NO
Ex-bank boss told of privacy concerns
It is a ‘substandard’ private laneway
Fears there could be ‘intrusive noise’
FORMER Anglo Irish Bank chairman Seán FitzPatrick won’t be able to build his new house if he can’t address ‘privacy concerns’, Wicklow County Council has warned.
The ‘planning ultimatum’ came as part of a-three page letter from the local authority to Mr FitzPatrick and his wife Caitriona, putting their house plan for Farm Lane, Greystones, on hold.
Following concerns expressed by a next-door neighbour, the council told the FitzPatricks that it is concerned the proposed home ‘has the potential to result in new and significant overlooking of adjoining properties’ as a result of its design.
Highlighting its concern, the council pointed to the proposed home’s extensive glazing at first-floor level, the inclusion of first-floor terraces and proximity to site boundaries.
It has asked the FitzPatricks to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the council that the development will not have a significant impact on the residential amenities and privacy of adjoining properties.
As a result, the FitzPatricks have been directed to provide a detailed report which identifies and assesses the potential risk for overlooking from the proposed home, and outlines how the risk is to be eliminated or mitigated.
It has also requested the FitzPatricks provide a detailed photographic survey demonstrating the views that will be available from the proposed dwelling and terraces.
In bold print, the council warns the FitzPatricks ‘the planning authority
is unlikely to recommend that planning permission for this development be granted unless it is satisfied that the proposed development would not have a negative impact on the amenities of adjoining properties’.
The FitzPatrick application site is accessed from Farm Lane and the council also stated in its letter that this is ‘a substandard private laneway that cannot accommodate movements without additional appropriate traffic upgrade works’.
The roadway could be further degraded by construction traffic, the council warned, and it requested the FitzPatricks submit full details of all works proposed on or directly adjacent to Farm Lane.
The authority placed the plan on hold after one neighbour, Fintan Graham, lodged an objection claiming that the proposal will negatively impact the residential amenity of nearby existing dwellings.
The plan consists of four bedrooms with access to an external terrace. At first-floor level the dwelling will comprise an entrance hall, family room, living room and kitchen/dining room, and each of the habitable rooms will have access to an upper terrace that will provide additional amenity space. The new home is to replace Meadow Garden, a single-storey, fire-damaged dwelling. The FitzPatricks held on to their home, Camaderry, next to
Greystones Golf Club, after Mr FitzPatrick was declared a bankrupt in 2010 in the wake of the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank.
Mr Graham’s single-storey property, The Spinney, borders the Meadow Garden site and he told the local authority a firstfloor balcony for the FitzPatrick proposal ‘will greatly reduce the current level of privacy... of existing dwellings’.
Mr Graham also stated that the proposed balcony design is elevated by 1.6 metres above the floor level of The Spinney, and could represent a source of ‘intrusive noise into [his] property’.
A chartered engineer, Mr Graham states that no technical or engineering reason has been provided in the planning application to justify the elevated nature of the proposed build and upper balcony.
Ross and Elaine McParland live next door to the FitzPatrickowned site, and in a submission lodged with the council, they asked the authority to judge whether the proposed build would infringe on their privacy.
In a document lodged with the planning application, planning consultant for the FitzPatricks Kevin Hughes has told the local authority that the proposed dwelling ‘has been designed to the highest quality, in terms of scale, height, massing and finishing materials, to ensure that there is no detriment caused to the amenity of adjoining neighbours or the character and appearance of the area’.
Mr Hughes also told the council the proposed home’s modern design would ‘achieve an attractive result’ nestled among the area’s older period homes.
In May 2017 Mr FitzPatrick was acquitted on criminal counts of allegedly misleading Anglo’s auditors about tens of millions of euro in loans concealed from the public between 2002 and 2007.
He resigned as chairman of the bank in December 2008, almost a month before it was nationalised. He quit after the true extent of his loans, amounting to around €122million, were disclosed by the bank.