The Jordanstown Councillor said the action is regrettable after the university’s proposal had already been considered and rejected on its merits by the Council’s planning committee.
Councillor Tom Campbell said: “The creation of 600 houses has been ill thought out and is manifestly excessive, given the local landscape.
“Throughout this process the university failed to meaningfully consult with the local community, with its only consultation evening at which these plans were on show for local residents widely criticised because of its lack of advertising.
“Leaving aside these criticisms of a failure to engage with the local community which dogged the application throughout, it was rejected in part because of its scale and density and lack of sympathy or regard for the local area in which it was placed.
“There is huge local opposition to these plans and previous efforts to get across to the University that the scale of the plans was unacceptable continually fell on deaf ears.
“From the start this has been an example of how not to consult a local community on a planning application of this size. At no stage was the University ever willing to even entertain a compromise in which it reduced the scale of the development.”