An Coimisiún Pleanála has given the green light for plans by businessman Eamon Waters for a purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) for Blackpitts, in Dublin 8, despite local opposition.
Mr Waters’ Blackpitts Residence UC was seeking planning permission for a 217-student bed space across six floors.
However, the planning commission has ordered the omission of a proposed fifth floor containing 28 bed spaces, which reduces the overall scheme to 189 bed spaces.
The ruling upheld a decision by the city council, which also ordered the omission of the fifth floor, and Blackpitts Residence UC appealed against that condition.
RM Block
The removal of the fifth floor was ordered in order to protect visual and residential amenity and prevent undue impact on neighbouring properties.
McGill Planning, on behalf of Blackpitts Residence UC, said that the omission of the fifth floor would “not only diminish the design quality, while delivering no tangible planning or amenity benefit, but it will also negatively impact the commercial viability of the project as a Dublin city PBSA for institutional investment”.
The scheme was also the source of a political row last October when the Minister for Further and Higher Education, James Lawless, wrote to Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald to complain about Sinn Féin councillor Ciarán Ó Meachair opposing the scheme.
In his submission to the council, Mr Ó Meachair said that “we have an over-concentration of PBSAs in Dublin 8 already. The new proposal would be the 10th such development here since 2017 and 13 PBSAs in total.”
Mr Ó Meachair claimed that “the overabundance of hotels, student accommodations and short-term rentals have hollowed out much of the sense of community in the Liberties”.
Two third-party appeals by Peter Crotty of Hammond Street, Blackpitts, and Anita Kenna were also lodged against the scheme.
In her appeal, Ms Kenna, of Clanbrassil Street, Dublin 8, told the commission that she moved to the Liberties, which she describes one of Dublin’s most welcoming and neighbourly areas, and her goal was to integrate and “make this my long-term home”.
She said: “However, now that I am surrounded by short-term rental, hotels and transient accommodation blocks, that sense of neighbourhood has been lost. It is extremely disheartening to realise that this may no longer be my ‘forever home’.”
The inspector in the case, Katy Tuck, recommended that planning permission be granted after concluding that the scheme “would constitute an acceptable scale and density of development in this urban location and would not seriously injure the residential or visual amenities of the area or properties in the vicinity”.
