Council’s blueprint ‘a major setback’

A DEVELOPER driving a bishop’s multi-million plan to transform a former diocesan college into a training and educational campus has slated the city’s plans for the site.

Michael O’Flynn, the managing director of O’Flynn Construction, wrote to all of Cork’s city councillors yesterday and said the council’s blueprint for the Farranferris area, which includes the former Farranferris College, “is a major setback” for Bishop of Cork and Ross, Dr John Buckley’s plans for the former diocesan college.

Mr O’Flynn was engaged last year by Bishop Buckley to draft a plan for the former seminary. He drew up a €48 million project that included an educational and training institute supported by affordable private housing.

But city manager Joe Gavin said it would be highly unusual for councillors to adopt such a plan and directed his officials to prepare a draft Local Area Plan (LAP) to guide the development. It was provided to Mr O’Flynn on Friday, along with a report from Mr Gavin.

It states that an area of 4.4 hectares is identified for medium to low density housing.

“This is broadly similar to the area of residential land proposed in an earlier proposal put forward by Bishop Buckley,” said Mr Gavin.

But Mr O’Flynn has criticised the city approach.

“The submission made on behalf of Bishop Buckley was based on extensive consultations with the education and training agencies and was grounded on a realistic assessment of what the agencies could afford,” said Mr O’Flynn.

“The approach taken in the draft LAP ignores the economic constraints facing a large mixed-use project in this type of location.

“There is no prospect of the project proceeding if the current draft of the LAP is adopted as the majority of the land suitable for housing has been sacrificed to provide a playing pitch; the scale of the educational development has been significantly reduced; and the access proposals are dependent on land out-side the control of the bishop.

“The local retail services have also been omitted. Although it is implied in the city manager’s report that there has been no reduction in the amount of housing land, the number of units would be substantially reduced due to topographical constraints.”

The developer also said the delay in the preparation of the draft LAP means the project will now have to contend with a more difficult marketing and funding context.

Councillors decided to keep the draft LAP in committee for further discussion.