The meditation centre on Inchicore Road, Kilmainham Source: Google Maps

A BUDDHIST MEDITATION centre in south Dublin has lost an appeal to An Bord Pleanála over the construction of a number of residences next door to its premises.

The Kagyu Samye Dzong Dublin centre in Kilmainham, also known as the Tibetan Buddhist Meditation Centre for World Peace and Health first lodged its appeal regarding the proposed construction 10 months ago, along with that of multiple representatives of the local Inchicore Road Residents Group.

The proposed construction would have seen a number of sheds torn down alongside the property adjacent to the meditation centre with a view to the construction of eight residences along with a new driveway.

Kagyu Samye Dzong, established in 1977, is the oldest Buddhist centre in Ireland.

The initial planning proposal was first delivered to Dublin City Council in April 2017. Formal approval of the plan with assorted conditions was granted two months later.

The appeal to An Bord Pleanála, the State body governing planning appeals, was duly lodged in July 2017. Such appeals generally take between six and 12 months to be ruled upon.

The Buddhist centre had made its unhappiness known via a third party observation on the planning application in May of last year.

Chief among its concerns were that the proposed development would have a negative impact on the centre’s own building, that the centre’s rear garden would be overlooked by the upper storeys of the new development, and that the application would be the cause of “noise and disruption” in the locality.

The site of the proposed development Source: Google Maps

‘Negative impact’

It also stressed that both the construction and a resultant additional population of 41 residents would have a “significant negative impact” on the existing building adjacent to the Buddhist centre, as it would result in “sub-standard accommodation” with no “public open space”.

The subsequent pair of appeals lodged against the development seem to have been entertained to an extent by an inspector’s report commissioned for An Bord Pleanála in October of last year.

That report recommended “that the appeal be upheld and that permission be refused” due to a number of factors, not least an assertion from an Irish Rail engineer (whose observations were commissioned for the initial Dublin City Council planning application) that the development not occur within 14 metres of the main railway lines into nearby Heuston Station, which border the properties to the north.

In its decision, made on 24 April 2018, the planning board chose to ignore the recommendation of its own inspector, stating “it is considered that… the proposed development would not seriously injure the setting and amenities of the existing or the adjoining building” and “would not seriously injure the residential and visual amenities of property in the vicinity or of the area”.