Dublin City Council refuses permission for hotel in Portobello

Dublin City Council has refused planning permission for a planned eight-storey hotel scheme for Dublin 8 as it would exacerbate the existing over-concentration of hotel developments in the area.

Last year, Derek Murtagh lodged plans for an 81-bedroom hotel at Kevin Street Lower and Liberty Lane in Portobello, Dublin 8.

Dublin City Council refused permission after a report lodged with the application confirmed that, between existing and permitted schemes, there were 2,758 hotel bedrooms being provided or planned within 500 metres of the hotel site. The report, which was prepared for Mr Murtagh by head of hotels and leisure at Savills, Tom Barrett, also said “we believe only a percentage of these will be built”.

Mr Barrett said the planned hotel “would be a good addition to this city centre area. It is an ideal location for a hotel, close to St Stephen’s Green and the Luas, but in a developing area of the city and forming a natural link to the former DIT site on Kevin Street, on to the Distillery Quarter and St James’s Gate and Guinness”.

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He said Dublin 8 was not a traditional hotel, leisure or corporate destination, but that had been slowly changing.

Mr Barrett said that, with significant investment, a small number of hotels had opened in the D8 area between St Stephen’s Green and the Guinness Storehouse in recent years.

However, the council ruled that the proposed development would exacerbate the existing over-concentration of hotel developments in the southeast quadrant of the city.

The council also ruled that the proposal would undermine the vision of the city development plan for the provision of a dynamic mix of uses within the city centre and fail to sustain the vitality of the inner city.

The council also concluded that the hotel scheme’s design, scale, bulk, massing and height represented overdevelopment of the site and would not complement the established built form and character of the surrounding area.

The scheme would appear visually incongruous and would cause serious injury to the setting and amenity of the area and would negatively impact the setting of an adjacent protected structure, the council said.

Mr Murtagh has now appealed the council decision to An Bord Pleanála.