Payments to drop objections at Sir John Rogers Quay

wow If I knew that’d happen, I’d go back in time and object to it, just to get the money lol 🙂

I could fund archiseek by appealing 😉

Of course by doing this the developers are setting a nasty precendent for themselves – every scheme will draw appeals in the hope of pocketing some money to withdraw

Has corruption really gone that deep? If I were ABP and heard of this I would leave the objections ‘on the table’ and treat their withdrawal as tainted. Alice in Wonderland? So is paying for votes; I’m sure it will, as Paul C says, come back and bite them mightily in the arse.

well if the objections/submissions were valid, do the points not stand in the eyes of the abp?

@lostexpectation wrote:

well if the objections/submissions were valid, do the points not stand in the eyes of the abp?

No, once the appeal is withdrawn, case over, the Local Authority decision stands!

This has been going on for years. I did an appeal for a residents association once, against a particularly un-zoned hotel, at a particularly inappropriate location and I was sure I had them nailed with six or seven clear contraventions of the Development Plan (I even read the whole wretched Development Plan just to be sure), only to be informed, four weeks into the appeal, that the residents had ”reached an understanding with the developer”.

. . . a six figure understanding, if the rumours were to be believed.

Apparently it’s perfectly legal, it just stinks a bit.

isn’t the first time i have heard this happening but is the first time i have heard of it outside of some leafy abode where the great and the good can afford representation or can adequately represent themselves. community gain???.
Is interesting and opens the can of worms- that if the appeal is accepted and deemed not vexatious or frivolous by the board then surely it should proceed? after all they have paid their fee to seek an adjudication?

Folks this happened at the height of the boom when a new development was going up on Bloomfield Avenue in Donnybrook – and was fairly widely reported too. If I recall correctly those well-healed residents on Morhampton Terrace each pocketed about 60k – while those residents that hadn’t bothered appealling got…O

The bitterness amongst the neighbours over the divvying of the spoils still lasts to this day apparently…

Good story by M Tighe to break re Rogerson’s Quay.

If Frank Dunlop can be imprisoned for bribery of council officials to vote or abstain from voting for/against planning decisions what is different about these activities? Surely any payment to anyone to distort the planning process is bribery. Where is the moral high ground, this behaviour taints everyone.

so if somebody points out in appeal a place doens’t have enough fire doors and the abp looks at it and is about report yes your right we have to refuse it, and then the person who put in the appeal withdraws the abp can approve a building without enough fire doors, there has to some sense in it.

people are, in my experience, “encouraged” to withdraw objections in 90% of all large or contentious planning submissions. Our planning system makes it inevitable

Personally speaking I really feel that legislation is required to prevent this happening, and I’d suggest reform of the Planning and Development act to prevents appeals being withdrawn – once it’s in, it’s in and ABP consider the written evidence regardless of what subsequently transpires between the applicant and the appellant. However, there may be an argument for compensation payments – but under a supervised and public process, perhaps the developer should have to apply to ABP to make an offer to appellants.

I’d also like to know what Revenue get from such payments, or is this tax-free income for appellants?

As it stands there is a hefty ‘stink’ from this going on. 😡