Gorilla and Eiffel Tower sculptures outside Charlie Chawke’s Goat Bar & Grill in Dublin’s Goatstown have been refused retention permission by council planners.
Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council turned down the planning although a life-size giraffe calf, also installed without planning permission, has been permitted to remain in place.
Tom Phillips, a planning consultant for Mr Chawke’s Charjon Investments Ltd, told the council the gorilla and calf giraffe features “complement the live animals in the pet farm element”.
The local authority refused permission for the gorilla and Eiffel Tower sculptures along with an outdoor TV screen and illuminated rooftop pizza sign on the basis they were highly visible from the streetscape, visually incongruent and out of keeping with the area.
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It said “the combined visual impact of these elements create a disorderly streetscape of design forms not suited to the area which fail to integrate with the streetscape.”
However, the calf giraffe sculpture has been allowed to remain in place. The planner’s report said it would not result in adverse impacts on the surrounding residential or visual amenity.
The report stated that “to do so, it may inhibit or preclude sustainable development of the neighbourhood centre and residential zoned lands and may support a negative precedent of unauthorised development in the surrounding area”.
The most recent accounts for Charjon Investments show that Box’d Coffee outdoor cafe enterprise generated revenues of €478,191 over two years to the end of March 2024.
The council issued its split decision after Circle K Ireland Energy Ltd lodged an objection with their planning consultant, Alan O’Callaghan of Coakley O’Neill Town Planning claiming “it is evident the disorderly and ad hoc nature of the structures and uses on site give rise to a material and negative visual impact upon the local area.”
Circle K operates a service station in the immediate vicinity of the Goat Pub site on the opposite side of the Taney Road.
