At a meeting of the Council on Monday 1st October, Dublin city councillors turned down Seán Dunne’s proposed high-rise development, which includes a 37-storey tower, on the site of the former Jury’s and Berkeley Court hotels in Ballsbridge on the grounds that it contravenes the city development plan.
Mr Dunne needed to get the City Councillors to agree to change the Dublin City Development Plan to allow him to build 17-storey blocks and a 37-storey tower well beyond the current zoning. In June, city councillors, at a local area meeting rejected a draft area plan for Ballsbridge that would have allowed high-rise development in the area.
Seán Dunne bought the 4.84 acre Jury’s Hotel site in Ballsbridge for €260m, which worked out at €54m per acre, then an Irish record. Dunne then purchased the Berkley Court Hotel for €119m, €57m per acre ,breaking the record he himself had set with the Jury’s Hotel purchase.
He was financed by a 5.25% interest bond compliments of Ulster Bank. The plan for the 7-acre site was recently unveiled, with Dunne himself saying that it would “bring Knightsbridge to Dublin” by developing a mixed use site of cafes, bars, restaurants, light retail and offices as well as the 37-storey block of apartments.
Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey said that he did not believe that the 37-story tower would be built but it was being used to disguise the fact that there was a 17-story block that had no merit whatsoever. “It’s just a box,” he said.
Fine Gael Councillor Paddy McCartan warned that if the scheme was granted, other developers would try to piggyback permission for re-zoning for high-rise buildings in the area.
Sine Fein’s Daithí Doolan said that Seán Dunne had “stepped over the line” in offering €31 million to the local community as “some sort of bribe.”
Senior city Planner Kieran Rose told Councillors that the height of the buildings proposed in the plan needed serious consideration, as did the issues in relation to children’s play areas and the distance of the buildings from the public road, but he went on to say that it was an ideal mixed-use scheme. All the City Councillors bar Fianna Fail’s Deidre Keane, who abstained, voted to reject the proposal as injurious to the good planning of the area.