A "tsunami" of hotels in the Dublin 8 area has driven one Councillor to call for the latest planning application for an "aparthotel" to be rejected.
Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty told Dublin Live the developer should be "nudged" towards building residential units which he said "the city is crying out for". The homelessness crisis has been deepening across the city with the latest figures showing another record breaking number of people availing of emergency accommodation.
The Dublin 8 area is also known to have a high number of applicants on social housing waiting lists compared to other areas. The Liberties is also already "oversaturated" with hotel rooms, with Cllr Moriarty estimating there are 1,373 hotel rooms built recently, being built or in the pipeline in the "immediate vicinity".
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The Labour councillor is calling on concerned locals to lodge observations to the application which he plans to do. He said: "Off the top of my head, I thought about all the hotel developments in the area that I have been giving out about over the last couple of years. I listed nearly 1,400 [hotel rooms] on twitter in a space you could throw a blanket over which have already been given permission or are in the pipeline.
"I'll be writing a submission myself alerting the planning department to all of these concerns that I have. I think it is a bit of an early acid test for whether or not this overconcentration provision will actually do anything.
He added: "Obviously, we have to recognise in Dublin and in particular in the Liberties area and Dublin City Centre, tourism does play a really important part in the local economy but there has been an absolute tsunami of hotels which have come at us."
"The city is absolutely crying out for housing." This application will act as a litmus test to the Local Authority's new development plan which, for the first time, sets out guidelines on the overconcentration of hotels.
The perceived over-concentration of hotels is a sore spot for many Dubliners and a protest was previously held when a developer lodged an application to build a hotel above the Cobblestone pub. There was a previous case of a planning application for a hotel on Capel Street which was lodged before the City Development plan came into effect.
Dublin City Council rejected the application but it was later approved by An Bord Pleanala after the developer lodged an appeal. APB ruled there were no planning guidelines for DCC to refuse the application on overconcentration grounds.
However, since the new development plan came into force on December 14 last year, Cllr Moriarty is "hopeful" the Dublin 8 'aparthotel' development will not be approved on appeal.
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