Planning permission refused for over 40 homes on grounds of former Cork nursing home

Seán McCárthaigh

An Bord Pleanála has refused planning permission for a large residential scheme on the site of a former Cope Foundation nursing home in Cork city because of its negative impact on the protected structure and surrounding landscape.

The board rejected an appeal by developer, Pontorac, against the decision of Cork City Council to reject its planning application to construct 42 housing units at the former facility on Lover’s Walk in Montenotte which is known as both Honan Home and Summerhill.

An Bord Pleanála said the location, character and scale of the proposed residential blocks would have a significant negative impact on the former Honan Home which is a protected structure and archaeological monument under the Cork City Development Plan 2022-2028.

For that reason, the board said the proposed development would contravene several objectives of the Cork City Development Plan 2022-2028 which aim to conserve the city’s built heritage.

The board said the grounds of the former residential home were located in an area designated as having a “high landscape value” which the development plan also sought to protect from inappropriate development.

It concluded the proposed development would seriously injure the visual amenities of the historic landscape given the extent of trees and vegetation that would have to be removed from the site together with the failure of the design of the new residential blocks to appropriately blend in with the existing landscape.

Over 80 trees were due to be removed from the site to facilitate the construction of the new housing units.

The board said it had also not been demonstrated to its satisfaction that the proposed development would not result in an unacceptable and negative visual impact on the intrinsic character of the area of high landscape value.

Similar grounds were cited by Cork City Council in its decision to refuse planning permission for the project, although the local authority also ruled that the scale of the plans represented overdevelopment.

They would have involved the construction of five new blocks to provide 29 residential units, the demolition of rear and side annexes of the former care facility as well as the construction of three extensions to the rear of the building.

The developer also proposed the conservation and internal reconfiguration of Honan Home to provide three townhouses and seven apartments and the creation of another residential unit through the extension and conversion of the existing gate lodge.

Two other semi-detached units were due to be built from works on the existing tank house in a project covering the 1.46-hectare site.

Pontorac had disagreed with the council’s finding that the proposed development would have a detrimental impact on the listed building as it did not propose to demolish any part of the protected structure.

The company claimed its plans would have had an “overwhelmingly positive impact” on the built heritage of the site through the conservation of historic elements and sustainable repurposing of the existing buildings.

It also argued that council officials had failed to acknowledge the deterioration and significant level of intervention that had already taken place both internally and externally when Honan Home was under the ownership of the Cope Foundation.

Pontorac also maintained that landscaping of the site would have been carried out to a very high standard and would not have had any negative visual impact.

Instead, it claimed the site would have been transformed from its current derelict and unkempt state to a functional residential neighbourhood with a historic building at its core.

Planning files indicated that Honan House has been unoccupied since 2005.

It was built around 1777 as a private house for George Newenham by his father George Sr – a member of a well-known Quaker family involved in banking in Cork.