Block of 29 AirBnB-style flats to get green light in East Belfast: Council planners override locals and NI Water, who all say scheme shouldn't happen

Council planners say the views of both Albertbridge Road residents and the people in charge of the province’s sewage system should be overridden to allow the project to go ahead.

To be built close to Connswater Shopping Centre on the former site of a Chinese restaurant, now demolished, the scheme will see 29 “short-term let” flats constructed.

Short-term lets are usually rented by tourists staying for a few days, popularised by the AirBnB style of arranging them.

Locals are worried the move will hurt traffic and parking in an already busy area, while NI Water lodged an objection stating there isn’t enough sewer capacity for the four-storey block of one bedroom flats.

But Belfast Council planners say both should be discounted, suggesting that people wouldn’t need to drive to the development as Albertbridge Road is on both bus and glider lines, while stating NI Water hadn’t provided “clear evidence” of what specific harm there would be from the project.

Planners also state the scheme will “strengthen and diversify short-term let accommodation” in an area that’s “within walking distance of a tourist attraction” – meaning CS Lewis Square and the Eastside Visitor Centre, both on nearby Newtownards Road.

NI Water told planners there are “network capacity issues” that result in “significant risks of detrimental effect” to both the environment and existing buildings in the area, adding those problems are already causing discharges on a street off Holywood Road and at Belfast Harbour.

The Northern Ireland Environment Agency also raised concerns about the sewage network, citing potential problems at a treatment plant to the east of the city on the shores of Belfast Lough, and stating that NI Water would have to be consulted over whether there is enough capacity in the area’s sewers to handle the extra load.

City planners have taken to discounting NI Water’s objections, however, by pointing to 20,000 homes and “significant levels of commercial floor space” across Belfast that have planning permission, but are yet to be built.

On paper, they’re all still due to be connected to the sewer network; as a result, planners argue the unbuilt homes and businesses could be regarded as spare capacity, meaning there’s no reason to block construction projects on NI Water’s say-so.

That reason is brought up again in a report on the Albertbridge Road flats, with officials stating “it would be unreasonable” to refuse planning permission on sewage capacity grounds given the number of unbuilt projects still slated to be added onto the network.

Several nearby residents complained that the area is lacking affordable family homes, suggesting those would be preferable to 29 one-bedroom flats.

However planners say the short-term lets scheme “is not considered to impact negatively on existing residential amenity”.

The project is due to come before the council’s Planning Committee on Tuesday night for a final decision, though officials have set out detailed reasons why they think it should go ahead.