Dublin City Council rejects Ballymore’s plan to convert vacant office into apartments

Dublin City Council has refused planning permission to Sean Mulryan’s Ballymore to convert a vacant office building into apartments due to a lack of outdoor amenity space at the site at Royal Canal Park, Dublin 15.

Mr Mulryan’s Ballymore has had corporate offices at Beacon Building at Royal Canal Park since 2018. The builder’s nearby seven-storey Meridian building has remained vacant, however, due to the lack of take-up for office space, resulting in the change of use planning application from office space to 28 apartments.

A planning report lodged with the Ballymore Estates Ltd application said the main reason for the lack of demand for office space at the location was its secondary location, the design of the building and a lack of car parking.

The Meridian building was completed to shell and core only and the planning report said Ballymore had been advised that the cost of fitting out the building to a modern office spec would exceed the value of the space.

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The report said: “Given this and the current housing crisis, it was decided that the optimal use of the existing structure would be to convert to residential use.”

[ Ballymore gets green light to develop part of Guinness brewery in Dublin for housing, hotels and offices ]

Ballymore wanted to convert the office space into 14 two-bedroom four-person units, seven three-bedroom apartments, a pair of two-bedroom three-person units and five one-bedroom apartments.

The council, however, refused the application due “to the total absence of access to external communal amenity space in the proposed development and the failure to provide well-considered, high-quality compensatory measures”.

The council found that the proposed development would fail to provide an adequate level of residential amenity for future residents, given the lack of any outdoor amenity space for the majority of units at 60 per cent.

The council’s planner’s report noted the existing vacancy on site and the change of use from office to residential was acceptable in principle.

The report said notwithstanding that this was a refurbishment of an existing vacant building, “the quality of the proposed development for future occupants was of serious concern, given the lack of provision of any external communal open space and the lack of access to the existing adjacent communal open space”.