The ongoing housing crisis has been cited by Dublin City Council as grounds for refusing planning for a new 111-bedroom hotel in the city centre.
Last year, Appalachian Property Holdings lodged plans that would see a new hotel constructed at 19-24 St Andrew’s Street, Dublin 2, less than 500 metres from College Green and Grafton Street. Its ground floor An Post branch would remain in operation.
However, the local authority refused permission, citing both the housing crisis and a clear direction in the city development plan promoting mixed use development with a focus on residential development.
It also raised its Housing Need Demand Assessment (HNDA) which recognises a high demand for long term residential rental properties such as apartments.
The proposed works, planners felt, would give rise to an unacceptably adverse and injurious impact on the special architectural character of a protected structure.
Its refusal came despite an endorsement of the scheme by Fáilte Ireland.
In a submission, the tourist body’s environment manager Shane Dineen told the council the proposed hotel “would be a valuable addition to the tourist accommodation stock in Dublin and would go some way to address the tourism accommodation shortages being faced by the city”.
Lizzie Donnelly of the planning consultancy Tom Phillips + Associates, told the council the scheme “has been designed sensitively and will not give rise to unacceptable impacts upon the surrounding context”.
Meanwhile, the council has also refused planning permission for a large hotel extension planned for Temple Bar.
Last August, Ampbay lodged plans to increase the size of the Paramount Hotel on Parliament Street from a 66 bedroom hotel to a 108 bedroom hotel.
However, in refusing planning permission, the council has ruled the scheme would represent an overdevelopment of the site and failed to integrate with the existing and surrounding development. It would also adversely affect the character and setting of protected structures, it said.
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