A Denis O'Brien firm has the green light to build luxury apartments in south Dublin
Residents complained the five separate, five-story blocks would hurt the Donnybrook area.
A COMPANY OWNED by billionaire Denis O’Brien has been given the go-ahead to build several luxury apartment blocks near Dublin’s city centre.
Dublin City Council has granted planning permission to a firm called Purleigh Holdings to build five separate five-storey blocks for a total of 90 new apartments.
Purleigh Holdings is a company based in Gibraltar that is controlled by businessman O’Brien, one of Ireland’s richest men.
The firm will develop the apartments on a site at Greenfield, in Donnybrook, south Dublin.
O’Brien acquired the site from UCD in 2008 when he gave the college another three-acre site at Roebuck as well as a reported €15 million.
New application
Purleigh was previously granted permission to build 71 apartments at the site despite objections from local residents.
In December, An Bord Pleanála backed Dublin City Council’s initial decision to grant planning permission to the development.
Purleigh then submitted a new application to increase the size of the project, with the number of apartments increasing to 90 and the size of the blocks rising from four to five storeys.
A sketch of one of the proposed blocks
Consultants acting on behalf of Purleigh said in a submission to the local council that the new development proposal “seeks to deliver a high-quality residential development at a scale and density which makes the most efficient use of serviced land within Dublin’s metropolitan area”.
Objections
However, residents again objected to this expanded proposal.
Among the complaints from locals was that the proposed development is “overbearing and out of scale and character with existing mainly two-storey residences in this area”.
Residents also said that the apartment blocks would cause increased “noise, disturbance, pollution and a lack of winter sunshine”.
The Greenfield Residents Group said: “90 units in an overbearing ‘monolith’ of five blocks each, five storeys is far too much, both for the development itself and for the surrounding residential area.”
However, Dublin City Council has now granted permission for the new development.
It was found that the new proposal is in accordance with the “proper planning and sustainable development of the area”.
O’Brien is now involved in several new developments near Dublin city centre. Earlier this year it was announced that the media mogul is backing a new hotel aimed at tech-savvy travelers that is set to open in spring 2018.
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