Errors force planning board to write-off claims
These happened when the planning appeals body failed to include a paragraph listing Part V social and affordable conditions in the relevant appeal decisions.
A claim at a third development will have to be revisited because of a similar omission four years later.
The routine Part V clauses would have obliged the developers to hand over a portion of new properties for social housing.
In two cases, dating from 2003, the board will meet shortly to formalise the loss arising from the errors.
The third happened in 2007, after a law allowing corrections to An Bord Pleanála decisions was introduced.
The board has yet to decide whether it will unilaterally amend this 2007 order or, because of the time lapse, invite the developer and the council to discuss the issue.
A comment from An Bord Pleanála said the files will be brought to a board meeting as soon as possible, but the date depended on the speed at which moreurgent matters were dealt with.
In all three cases planners at the local authorities had correctly included the Part V condition, this paragraph was lost in the draft which emerged from An Bord Pleanála.
The details of these errors emerged through a recent value for money audit of the Part V process conducted for the Department of the Environment.
The largest of the two sites was a 177-unit development in Raheny, on the north side of Dublin city.
Had the condition been applied properly it would have resulted in approximately 26 two-bedroom apartments in an attractive area being handed over to Dublin City Council for allocation to people on its housing lists.
The second site was a six-unit apartment block on the Old County Road in Crumlin. This would have given Dublin City Council the equivalent of one apartment in cash or property.
The apartments, or cash compensation, cannot be claimed back now because they were not specified on the board’s conditions.
At the time the appeals were decided the law in place meant that an order signed by the board was binding, even if it contained an obvious error.
The new law came into force in 2007 allowing amendments to genuine errors.
