Plan for seven-storey hotel on Dublin’s Baggot Street meets with objections

Leading lawyers Mark and Karyn Harty, who live next door to the site which the Corcorans bought last year for €3.5m, have lodged an objection to the proposed development “in the strongest terms”.

The Irish Georgian Society has told Dublin City Council it has “significant concerns about the scale, bulk, height and intensity” of the planned hotel at 73 Lower Baggot Street, a protected structure. It says the development is “very considerably in excess of what could ever be considered reasonably for a corner/side garden site within a sensitive historic build environment”.

In its application the Corcorans’ Kilcolman Partnership said its proposed “guesthouse” would have 30 bedrooms. It would demolish a side extension, construct an extension that would be partly six and partly seven storeys, and change the use of a detached carriage house to a laundry facility.

The Corcorans are the owners of Perryville House, a guesthouse in Kinsale.

In a personal letter to the council, Karyn and Mark Harty SC say they bought the listed No 72 in 2014 and reinstated it under the guidance of a conservation architect, carefully preserving the character and fabric of the building. They say it is not a trophy home “but a family home”, and they bought it on the understanding that any development in the area would be minimal, “and entirely complementary to the Georgian streetscape”.

They invited Andrew Corcoran to discuss his plans with them not long after he purchased No 73. “He did not do so and instead presented us with finished plans two days before they were lodged with the council,” the Hartys say.

“Had Mr Corcoran visited our home he would have seen that information in his application is incorrect, and the proposal is inappropriate being built beside a family home.”

The legal couple say that the submitted justification for another hotel in the area is “weak” and made without proper evidence. They take issue with a claim in the application that there are only 12 hotels within 1km of the site. They identify additional premises such as the Hilton Dublin (with 198 bedrooms), the Charlemont (127 rooms) and Pembroke Townhouse (49).

They also say that the proposed development would have a significant adverse impact on the daylight of their adjacent property, and claim the application fails to have regard for the recent refusal by An Bord Pleanála for a five-storey development on an adjacent site, with the appeals board saying that the bulk, height and design of the proposal would have detracted from the setting, character and appearance of a conservation area.

The Irish Georgian Society says it is “particularly concerned” by the proposal to demolish a ground-floor south wing, and to build a five-storey block to the rear of the retained façade of the south wing and a carriage arch.

It adds: “The construction of a five- to seven-storey hotel between the house at No 73 and the coach house will result in the erasure of historic plots and building lines, as well as the severance of any functional relationship between the house and the outbuildings, at this prominent corner.”

In another observation about the application, Katy McGuinness and Felim Dunne say that putting the proposed development on the finished gable of No 73 “is inappropriate and should be reconsidered”, adding that “adequate ‘breathing space” should be provided to the Georgian terraces, the coach house and the garden walls”.