What ever became of the planned mill museum in Islandbridge?

On Tuesday morning, the sunshine reflected off the big windows of Block C in the Bellevue complex of more than 200 apartments, in Islandbridge. 

To the north of the complex, the Liffey rushes by on its way through town and onwards to the sea. 

To the south, behind the four-storey Block C, the waters of an old millrace are shallow, dark and placid, shaded by trees. 

The bit between these two waterways, Mill Island, has been “associated with milling since at least the 12th century”, according to a report from the council’s archaeology section.

“The medieval mills and fishing rights were owned by the Knight Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, whose priory was located nearby at Cill Maigneann,” the report says. 

So when Zoe Developments got planning permission in 1997 to build a 90+ apartment phase of the Bellevue complex here, in six two- to five-storey buildings, the plans included touches meant to provide reminders of the area’s milling history. 

“Two of the buildings are reconstructed existing mill buildings,” the planning application said. The buildings of the new complex “surround 2 restored mill bonds and existing mill races and sluices are to be restored”.

And there was supposed to be a mill museum at the bottom of Block C, according to a council planner’s report from last year. 

“Arrangements for the display of material, access by the public and management of the exhibition space shall be submitted to and agreed with the Planning Authority prior to the completion of Building C,” says a condition of the 1997 planning permission.

That museum, however, has never been completed. The space where it was supposed to be is still just an empty box, whose centrepiece is a “mill pit”, meant to hold a mill wheel. 

And then last year, its current owner, Logical Development and Consulting Ltd, applied for planning permission to put four apartments into the space, leaving just a small rump of a museum/community room.

In December, Dublin City Council refused this application, finding it went against the original planning application, and various elements of the city development plan. On 12 May, An Coimisiún Pleanála refused Logical’s appeal of this decision.

Walking by the empty space on Tuesday, Bellevue resident Nazar Golianych said that more homes would be good, of course, given the shortage of them. 

But there’s not a lot to do around the area, so a museum would be good too, he said. “And if you commit to do it, and get planning permission, and you don’t do it – that’s not right,” he said.

Of course, the problem of developers building empty boxes and not filling them with promised amenities is by no means limited to Bellevue. Across Dublin, there are empty – creche, arts, and market – spaces.

Rejection

The report submitted to the council last year on Logical’s behalf, in its bid to get permission to put four apartments into the mill space, does not say why the original developer did not open the mill museum.

It does include drawings showing the proposed redesign of the museum space: two 37sqm studio apartments and a 24.6sqm museum/community room on the ground floor, plus a 48sqm one-bed and a 50sqm one-bed on the first floor level.

The planning application included a letter of support from John Mannion, who is identified in the letter as the chair of the Bellevue owners’ management company.

“The proposed development represents a significant improvement to a currently underutilised and deteriorating structure, which has remained vacant and in poor condition for an extended period,” Mannion writes. 

Putting apartments into the space “will not only enhance the overall character and safety of the development but also contribute positively to local housing supply”, he writes. 

There are also two letters from Bellevue residents. 

The space has “remained unfinished and is effectively an empty shell for over 20 years”, writes Bellevue resident Bryan Patten.  

When a liquidator transferred the common areas of the complex to the owners’ management company in 2019, it “removed the Museum from the common area and took ownership of the building”, and later sold the building, Patten writes. 

The “current applicant holds no responsibility for the failure by others to meet the planning requirements”, he writes. “But they did purchase the site with those conditions in place, and they do have an obligation to put forward a plan that is appropriate in that context.”

Patten writes that he has “no objections to additional apartments being provided for in the space”, but that the proposal for the “does not create viable space for real use”. 

Maybe, he suggests, a bit more museum, and a bit less housing in the space? 

“The dedication of the entire ground floor of the development as an exhibition or community space would seem appropriate in scale,” he writes. 

From the drawings, that would mean a museum/community space of nearly 100 sqm, rather than the proposed 24.6sqm.

And there should be a “clear plan of use and a way of sustaining its use”, Patten writes. “Another empty void for another 20 years is not progress.”

Another letter, from Jane and Dominic Keogh, and Bernadette Canning and Richard Dixon, all with addresses at Bellevue, argues that the planning application included mistakes, and it should be rejected. 

Appeal

After the council turned down Logical’s planning application last year, the company appealed that decision to An Coimisiún Pleanála. 

The “existing cultural space has been redesigned into a reduced floorspace unit in order to promote its use as a cultural/community room due to the vacant nature of the existing unit”, the appeal says. 

The plan is to put a glass window in the floor to the mill race beneath the building, and put up a “specially designed display informing the public about the mill race”, it says. 

“The proposed development represents the more efficient and sustainable use of the existing vacant and underutilised building that provides an appropriate response to the use of the site, whilst also providing for a high standard of residential accommodation for future residents,” it says.

But An Coimisiún Pleanála’s inspector disagreed with Logical’s approach. 

The museum was required “in return for allowing the proposed apartment development”, and neither Logical’s application nor its appeal “adequately explained why the parent permission conditions cannot be implemented”, the inspector writes. 

Yes, the space is under-utilised, but that’s because it’s an empty box with no museum in it – or, as the inspector puts it, “because of the failure to adhere to the relevant conditions of the parent permission”. 

Logical’s proposed redesign of the space – with four apartments plus a small museum/community room – wouldn’t meet the planning requirements, he writes.

“The retention of the entire ground floor would be required to facilitate heritage protection of the mill pit and provide a useable museum/community facility,” he writes. 

Also, “the double height space” – the ceiling in the museum space is more than 6 metres high – “was originally provided to accommodate the remnants of mill wheel”, the inspector writes. 

“The retention of the entire unit would … be required to accommodate the original intended heritage displays for the unit,” he writes.

Allowing the conversion of most of the museum space into apartments would set a precedent that would be “deleterious to archaeological preservation in the future as it could encourage the non-provision of spaces for such preservation”, he writes. 

But even if the redesign was going to be allowed, the proposed apartments would have bedrooms that are too narrow, would lack storage space, and one would likely lack sufficient daylight, he writes. 

“Overall, in my opinion, the proposed apartment units would be deficient relative to the Apartment Standards,” he writes.

In the end, An Coimisiún Pleanála, followed the inspector’s recommendation and turned down Logical’s appeal.  

The plan to shrink down the museum would break the planning condition, go against several provisions of the city development plan, and set an “undesirable precedent” the commission decided.