AN APPLICATION HAS been lodged to build just under 500 build-to-rent apartments at the site of the former Chivers Factory in Coolock. 

The application for 495 apartments, a crèche, cafe, gym and associated site works was lodged with An Bord Pleanála on the last day of last month. 

The application was lodged by English company Platinum Land, which is headed up by Irish brothers Maurice and Andrew Gillick, and is the latest in a string of applications for build-to-rent properties in the capital. 

The apartment plans were lodged directly with ABP under fast-track planning laws introduced in late-2016 which allow proposed developments of over 100 units to bypass city planners. 

Dublin city councillors were lobbied last year and in May voted to re-zone the site from use as enterprise and employment creation to residential use.

It was originally planned that about 350 apartments would be built on the site, but that number has now increased significantly. 

A decision on the application is expected in mid-August.

Ramping up construction 

The proposed development is the latest in a string of applications under the Strategic Housing Development fast-track planning laws, introduced in June 2017 by Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy. 

Thousands of apartments and units of student accommodation are either in the consultation phase or have been given the green light across the city in recent months. 

However, as a recent investigation by Noteworthy, TheJournal.ie’s new investigative journalism platform, shows, fewer than 40% of SHDs that have been given the green light have actually begun construction.

Officials in the Department of Housing warned that the slow rate of development could “undermine” the entire initiative, a key part of the government’s Rebuilding Ireland plan.

The Chivers Factory Site, on Coolock Drive, Coolock in Dublin 17 was snapped up the Gillick brothers’ Irish development company Veni Vidi Vici in 2011, from the receivers of developer Liam O’Carroll, who had previously owned it. 

It was in operation as a factory for jam and jelly makers Chivers for decades, before it closed in 2007.