Dublin city councillors will discuss the merits of Seán Dunne's high-rise plans for the Jurys Ballsbridge/Berkeley Court hotels site at the next meeting of the Ballsbridge Area Committee on September 11th. Tim O'Brienreports.
Councillors have five weeks in which to make observations or objections.
The same timeframe applies to members of the public.
Ballsbridge area councillor and former lord mayor Dermot Lacey said that since he would be pushing for city planners to also discuss plans for a high-rise building on the adjacent site of the former veterinary college, he was open to change.
He told The Irish Times the redevelopment of the hotels could not be considered in isolation.
In addition to a high-rise building planned for the veterinary college site, it was known that Lansdowne House, the AIB Bank Centre buildings and buildings on the RDS grounds were to be developed, he said.
Cllr Lacey said his first impressions of the plans which were lodged with the city council yesterday by Mr Dunne's company, Mountbrook Homes, were that they were interesting.
He did not have a particular problem with high-rise buildings of architectural merit, but he said the 27-storey tower put forward for the site "does change forever the aesthetics of the area".
Cllr Lacey also said much critical attention had fallen on this tower, while a "much less attractive 17-storey tower at the back", on the Shelbourne Road side of the site, had largely escaped attention.
Fine Gael councillor for the area, Paddy McCartan , was more assertive in his opinion, saying that the hotel site proposals were "a grandiose plan ill-suited for Ballsbridge".
He said he had asked the project managers how the plot ratio compared with the Manhattan area of New York and had been told it was similar.
This ratio was higher than that in a recent local area plan rejected by the council as being excessive, he said. If approved, "you would seriously end up with Manhattan".
While Mr McCartan welcomed the opportunity to discuss urban sprawl, he said he did not want the plans approved as they would set a precedent for the area.
"I am only a new councillor [ Mr McCartan recently replaced Lucinda Creighton on her election to the Dáil] but I am old enough to remember attempts to destroy Georgian Dublin, Hume Street and Wood Quay," he said.
Dublin city planners now have eight weeks to decide on a refusal, approval, or to request additional information.