More student rooms in Prussia Street, Dublin, are not needed as the area “is top heavy” with similar schemes, said Joe Costello, the deputy lord mayor of Dublin.
The plan for a 238-room student block would meet “a lot of concern” from the council as it risked “toppling the balance” between residents and students in Grangegorman, he said.
Viridis Real Estate, a London property investment group, applied last month to An Bord Pleanala for a strategic housing consultation at 29b, 30 and 31 Prussia Street.
Last year Prussia Properties applied for 296 student rooms in blocks up to eight floors high, but the project was rejected.
Costello, a Labour Party councillor, told The Times: “The whole area now is just full of student accommodation. As of yet, the plans for 2,000 units of accommodation on the Grangegorman campus [Technological University of Dublin] haven’t been done. I would much prefer students being able to live on campus but in the meantime we are getting other proposals.”
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He added: “The whole area will be surrounded by student accommodation or co-living — you can only take so much.”
This year the Park Shopping Centre at 7 Prussia Street won permission to demolish its retail premises and to build 175 homes, including three houses, 29 build-to-rent flats and two blocks for 584 students. The eight-floor development will have a footpath to the TUD Grangegorman campus.
Costello said the system of strategic housing developments had given the board too much authority on large developments. He said the process had created loopholes that could allow buildings that were unsuitable for a particular area or community.
“At the end of the day it is up to An Bord Pleanala and we have no say,” he said. “In my mind it is a perverse approach.”
Last month the government approved plans to replace strategic housing developments with a “streamlined arrangement” by which decision-making is returned to local authorities. Next February will be the last month to submit a strategic housing development application to the board.
