Developer Bernard McNamara has written to Dublin City Council asking it to change the amount of the €412m Irish Glass Bottle site in Dublin that can be developed. McNamara has requested that the draft development plan be changed to allow 70% of the site be built on, rather than the proposed 50%. McNamara has also requested that higher plot ratios be allowed – meaning that taller buildings could be developed on the site.

Despite McNamara's request, it is understood that the debt on the site was transferred to Nama at a cost whereby the agency believes it could develop three-bed semi-detached houses on the site and make a profit, rather than invest in developing towers on the site.

McNamara has also asked the local authority to allow a retail centre in the area. He wants it to draw up a framework plan for the area, in the absence of one from the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) which has had to re-draft its plans following threats of legal action.

The DDDA owns part of the site which is now worth less than €50m. McNamara and property investor Derek Quinlan own the remainder of the Becbay joint venture. The heavily polluted site was bought at the top of the market with millions subsequently spent removing asbestos. Concerns have since been raised about methane emissions on the land which was formerly a dump.

McNamara is suing the Dublin Docklands Development Authority for €108m, alleging it failed to deliver planning permission for the site. He in turn is being sued for €62.5m by private clients of Davy Stockbrokers who provided him with mezzanine funding to finance his stake in the troubled project.

The Sunday Tribune revealed in March that the planning scheme drawn up for the Poolbeg peninsula, including the Glass Bottle site, had "not to date been carried out in a fair, equitable and transparent manner", according to a report drawn up for the DDDA. The planning scheme, which is the responsibility of the DDDA, has "planning problems" but "no illegalities have been found", according to planning consultants Brady Shipman Martin.

DDDA chairwoman Niamh Brennan, who was appointed after the site purchase, has said that she found the question of why the authority got involved with the joint venture to develop the site "hard to answer".