Council rejects penthouse suite plan for new Dublin hotel

Gordon Deegan

Dublin City Council has refused planning permission to Eamon Waters’s expanding Sretaw hotel group for a penthouse suite on top of its Chancery Hotel due to impacts on Dublin Castle.

The 147 bedroom Chancery Hotel is due to open for business this Autumn, but the Council has refused planning permission for the “unacceptable” penthouse suite on top of the eight-storey hotel for Ship Street Great in Dublin 8.

The Council has refused planning permission to Mr Waters’s Wave Point Ltd after concluding that the 1,937 sq ft penthouse suite significantly detracts from the setting of Dublin Castle and its attendant grounds due to the height, scale and design of the proposed additional penthouse.

The planning authority stated that the proposal would result in a visually incongruous form of development which fails to integrate or be compatible with its sensitive surroundings.

The eight-page planner’s report which recommended a refusal pointed out that the parent permission for the hotel “has undergone numerous alterations and additions with incremental increases in height, and it is considered that the introduction of this new penthouse level will detract from the building and its overall design”.

The planning report stated that “while the additional floor may not be visible directly to the street, due to the setback, it will be visible from further viewpoints”.

In a submission to the council, Coman de Burca of Horan Rainsford Architects for the applicant contended that the proposed extension “does not have a detrimental effect on the character of the surrounding area and the alterations would be imperceptible from the immediate street-scape”.

Mr de Burca added that “we contend that the extension as proposed is modest in nature and is consistent with the Dublin City Council Development Plan policies for inner city development”.

Mr de Burca stated that the additional floor level has been carefully planned to minimise any potential visual impact on neighbouring properties”.

However, Dublin City Planning Officer with An Taisce, Kevin Duff told the Council “that the proposed additional floor structure, which would look directly into Dublin Castle grounds, one of the pre-eminent historic sites of Dublin city centre, would not be appropriate in this location”.

Recommending that the proposal be refused, Mr Duff stated that the hotel is already eight storeys high and construction of another, ninth storey “would further throw this historic streetscape off balance and would increase shadowing on, and decrease light reach to, adjacent property”.