An Bord Pleanála has refused planning permission publican Tom Cleary for a new hotel for Dublin’s Temple Bar area.
Mr Cleary is the owner of The Temple Bar in Temple Bar and the appeals board has refused planning permission to Mr Cleary’s Chambers Properties Ltd for a 47-bedroom hotel facing on to Dame Street and Eustace Street as a planned roof extension of the scheme “would be an overly dominant and obtrusive form of development”.
The application involves the change of use of a building known as the Shamrock Chambers which is a five-storey, over-basement building comprising a vacant restaurant, shop and voffices, to a six-storey hotel. The ground floor of the planned scheme would consist of bar orrestaurant.
However, the appeals board ruled that the roof extension was of excessive height, scale, and massing and would be injurious to the character and appearance of the host building, which is of heritage value, the visual amenity of the surrounding conservation area, and the streetscape on Dame street.
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In its rejection of the scheme, the appeals board has also ruled that the proposed removal of a Dame Street shopfront and subsequent design alterations would seriously injure the character and distinctiveness of the building.
The appeals board concluded that the proposed development would be contrary to policies in the City Development Plan, which seek to protect the special interest and character of protected structures and would set an undesirable precedent for similar type development.
The reasons for refusal do provide Mr Cleary’s firm the option to lodge revised plans where the issue of the roof extension and the Dame Street shopfront could be addressed by design alterations.
The city council did refuse planning permission due to fears that the project could lead to an over-concentration of hotels for the area.
However, the appeals board did not uphold that reason for refusal.
The inspector in the case, Terence McLellan, found that the council had “not demonstrated that there would be an overconcentration of hotels in this location”.
Mr McLellan also pointed out that hotel use had previously been permitted on this site.
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