Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald has lodged a planning appeal against the third phase of Hammerson’s €500 million transformation plan for Moore Street in Dublin city centre.
Last month Dublin City Council granted planning permission to UK property giant Hammerson for twin applications for the redevelopment of a 5.5-acre plot stretching from O’Connell Street to Moore Street. The applications include 79 build-to-rent apartments a hotel, shops, a restaurant, and cafe as well as cultural uses.
Deputy McDonald has lodged appeals with An Bord Pleanala against both planning permissions and is among nine others who have lodged objections against the scheme. Others to appeal the scheme include The 1916 Relatives Moore Street Initiative, Relatives of Signatories of the Proclamation, Moore Street Preservation and the Moore Street Traders along with a number of individual third-party appeals.
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The latest phase of the scheme would the demolition of buildings and structures on site at Moore Street and Moore Lane to accommodate the construction of a new public plaza along with a mixed-use scheme in a six-storey building.
In her objection against the third phase, Deputy McDonald claimed that the proposed development “will erase for all time Moore Street’s unique plot grains and courtyards which give this site its historic core differentiating it from other competing locations nationally and internationally". n
In her submission, Deputy McDonald said that Moore Street is "famed for its street market traditions and 1916 Rising connections is Dublin’s historic core and as such provides the city’s uniqueness in terms of a tourist offering and a sustainable, socially just and economically vibrant regeneration opportunity for the north inner city”. The Sinn Fein leader also claimed that the planning application fails “to protect and preserve this area of unique historical, architectural, social, cultural and economic importance”.
Concerning the latest phase, the Dublin City Council planning report, which recommended permission, stated that the proposal “would secure the regeneration of a brownfield site in a city centre location for office and café/restaurant space, providing frontage to a new public space”.
The city council said the scheme “would ensure a more active frontage to O’Rahilly Parade in keeping with its historic significance”. The council also stated that the proposed development, together with the development proposed on the adjoining site, which is the subject of an appeal to An Bord Pleanala “will complement the development of the adjacent National Monument as a commemorative centre for the 1916 Rising”.
A decision is due on the case in November, although a backlog in appeals means that a decision may not be made until 2023.
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