Dublin Corporation has again deferred making its decision on a major high-rise development at George's Quay, opposite the Custom House, because of growing concern about its impact.
The Cosgrave Property Group is seeking permission for three office blocks and two apartment buildings on the vacant site beside Tara Street DART station and behind two five-storey blocks on the quay front.
The largest of the proposed buildings, a crescent-shaped 24-storey office tower, would rise to 100 metres. It would be nearly 70 per cent higher than Liberty Hall - currently the city's tallest building, at 59 metres. Designed by international architects Skidmore Owings and Merrill, the George's Quay scheme has generated a significant number of objections from conservation bodies and other interests, mainly because of its exceptional scale.
Several objectors have expressed surprise that the corporation planners have not sought an environmental impact statement from the developers, even though the site is below the two-hectare (4.8-acre) threshold for an EIS.
The Irish Pension Fund Property Unit Trust, which owns the building on George's Quay occupied by Price Waterhouse Coopers, says it "will be wholly or partly in the shadow of the office tower for long periods, even at the height of summer".
While the Irish Georgian Society has stressed that it would not be opposed to high-rise development in the Docklands area, it says the proposed complex at George's Quay would "dominate the skyline" over College Green.
It maintains that the 24-storey tower would have a "detrimental impact" on the Bank of Ireland and Trinity College and would cast shadows on the Custom House, particularly in winter, undermining the value of Gandon's masterpiece.
The Dublin Civic Group, in its letter, says the scheme would involve a "massive intrusion on the established skyline and environmental quality of the city", adding that the proposed "architectural colossus" would be "totally alien" to Dublin.
According to An Taisce, the Cosgrave Group's planning application is the most important "bar none" made in Dublin because, if granted, it would produce the highest building in the 1,000-year-old history of the city.
"No sunlight and shadow analysis has been undertaken," An Taisce says, adding that the computer-generated three-dimensional studies submitted with the planning application show that it would have a "highly onerous" impact on the skyline.
"This despoiling of the city's skyline is such as to merit comparison with the often-derided Tour Parnasse (sic) in Paris", which was once described as "an excrescence in the eye of the viewer, only invisible from its own terraces".
Dublin Corporation was to have made a decision on the scheme yesterday, but it has now been deferred until September 30th to allow the developers and their architects more time to reconsider the height issue.
