Plans to be lodged for 223-bedroom hotel in Rathmines
Gordon Deegan
Plans are to be lodged for a six-storey hotel scheme for Lower Rathmines Rd in Dublin 6, which will result in a 223-bedroom hotel.
Giocoso UC is to lodge plans with Dublin City Council to extend and refurbish an existing apart-hotel at 121 to 125 Lower Rathmines Rd, Rathmines and the application is seeking to add 157 bedrooms to the 66 bedrooms already in place at the site.
The statutory planning notice states that the hotel will be six storeys over a lower ground and as part of the application, Giocoso Ltd is seeking to demolish 4,218 square metres of floor area and refurbish 2,332 square metres.
The notice states that the total floor area to be extended is 7,626 square metres and involves the construction of a new six-storey hotel over a lower ground floor extension with setbacks at fourth and fifth floor levels.
The planned new hotel coincides with Dublin City Council giving the go-ahead for a separate 267-bedroom hotel for Balmoral Land Beresford Ltd at Beresford Street, Dublin 7, as part of a mixed use scheme.
The application by Balmoral Land Beresford Ltd rises to 12 storeys in height and also includes 191 apartments and the provision of a new public plaza to the southeast corner of the site at the junction of Mary's Lane and George's Hill.
The council has granted planning permission despite the objections of a number of locals and a local primary school.
In giving the project the go-ahead, the council concluded that the delivery of residential (and employment) development on this highly accessible , underutilised, serviced brownfield site, in a compact form would be consistent with policies and intended outcomes of current Government policy.
The council also found that the planned 12 storey height is appropriate to the site and area and allows for a suitable higher inner city density of development that will represent an efficient use of scarce zoned and serviced urban land.
On behalf of the Board of Management of Presentation Primary School George's Hill, Halston Street, Dublin 7, School Principal, Lorraine Hession stated that the proposed 6-12 storey building, positioned in extremely close proximity to the school, gives rise to serious concerns regarding overlooking.
Hession told the council that this proximity “places children, some as young as three years old, in full view of residential units and vice versa”.
Hession said that “such a relationship is incompatible with the location of a primary school, raises profound child protection and safeguarding issues, and creates an unacceptable loss of privacy for pupils and staff”.
Hession said that these issues “must be addressed as a matter of priority”.
Hession contended that the Board of Management emphasises that inner-city children “are entitled to look outside and see the sky, and the proposed massing will materially diminish this basic environmental quality”.
She said that the school “is located in a dense urban area, but the proposed height represents a substantial and damaging increase in overshadowing beyond what can reasonably be expected in a city centre setting”.
Local resident, Anthony Lynam said that the area “already has numerous existing hotels including recent new developments of hotels”.
He said: “This is a complete over-saturation of this type of accommodation in the area. Locating a hotel so close to residential properties would add to the noise and transient activity in the area.”
