A landlord who evicted his tenants by telling them he was selling up has been refused planning permission to convert his Dublin city centre property to Airbnbs.
Marc Godart was already letting the apartments as Airbnbs when he submitted the application. He has been given a four weeks cessation notice after Dublin City Council deemed this as “unauthorised use of the property”.
Mr Godart evicted his tenants at Reuben House on Reuben Street, Dublin 8 in August 2022 telling them he was selling the apartments. However, not too late after that some of them saw the property listed as an Airbnb on holiday websites.
Labour Cllr Darragh Moriarty said he was contacted by a former tenant who read a Dublin Live article covering the controversial planning permission application. She told him that in April 2022, she along with 45 other tenants received an eviction notice.
The landlord told them he was selling the property and they left in August of last year. Cllr Moriarty said: “She says she thinks most of them found somewhere else to live - she found somewhere else to live, but it was obviously very, very challenging and a very difficult housing market to find available and affordable rental properties.
Read more: 'I can't get my head around proposal to turn Dublin 8 apartments into hotel'
“Then she said she was walking by the property and there was a group of people waiting outside to go in. She thought it looked strange and she asked them, do they live there? And they said, no, we're staying here for the weekend. So she went home and immediately went on different holiday websites, Airbnb, and she found the apartment block where she used to live.”
The former tenant contacted Dublin City Council in February but after Cllr Moriarty heard about this, he became a co-complainant. Following an investigation, the City Council issued an enforcement notice in March, which Dublin Live has seen. The notice ordered “the cessation of the unauthorised use of the property at Reuben House, Reuben Street, Dublin 8 for short term letting purposes”. Mr Godart was given four weeks to comply, until April 28, 2023.
Cllr Moriarty said: “In a rent-pressure zone, because housing supply is so bad, you need planning permission before you can turn a property into a short-term holiday let. He never sought planning permission, he evicted all of his tenants and turned it into an Airbnb. He then applied for planning permission.”
The planning permission was rejected on April 28 for several reasons. It was taking residential stock out of the city during a housing crisis. The Council also did not think a tourist accommodation was needed in the city centre area as it would be “detrimental to the wider objective of providing a rich and vibrant range of uses in the city centre including residential, social, cultural and economic functions”.
Furthermore, the proposed standard of tourist accomodation was considered “poor” and “does not meet criteria on unit styles and sizes and discouragement of over-proliferation of single bed aparthotel units”.
READ NEXT:
Hundreds of die-hard Brue Springsteen fans turned away from queue outside venue
State witness Jonathan Dowdall to be moved prison because he is taking up too much space
Man 'seriously' injured in city centre stabbing as woman arrested
Urgent recall issued for Cadbury items sold in Lidl due to contamination risk
Protests near Dublin Airport this morning will likely disrupt traffic
Sign up to the Dublin Live Newsletter to get all the latest Dublin news straight to your inbox.
