An Bord Pleanála has refused permission for alterations and extensions to four Georgian houses on Upper Gardiner Street, Dublin, saying they would have "an adverse impact on the integrity, character and setting of the protected structures".
The board ruled that developer David Grant had also failed to comply with the 2001 planning regulations in that new works were not clearly identified and the application should have shown their effect on the character of the listed buildings.
Permission was also refused by the board for what was described as the "sympathetic renovation and reconstruction" of the buildings, including a change of use from hostel to hotel, with a bar and basement nightclub extension to the rear.
Mr Grant, who runs a consultancy called David Grant Architects and Associates on Haddington Road, Dublin, was featured in a recent RTÉ Prime Time investigation of business people with no architectural qualifications posing as architects.
The programme estimated that Mr Grant had earned more than €2 million in fees for making planning applications despite the fact that he had a planning refusal rate three times higher than any other applicant for permission in the Dublin area.
David O'Connor, planning director with Fingal County Council, told Prime Time that it had refused 67 per cent of the 132 planning applications Mr Grant had made since 2001. "That's a very high rate of refusal by any standard," he said.
In September 2003, the Dublin Small Claims Court awarded €1,269 against Mr Grant's firm to a woman from Coolock who had been refused permission to build a house in the garden of her mother's home, partly because of an error in the drawings.
The director of the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland, John Graby, confirmed yesterday that it had sent a solicitor's letter to Mr Grant over his alleged use of RIAI client-architect agreements, claiming this was a breach of copyright. "It does appear he has given the impression that he's a qualified architect and member of the institute," he told The Irish Times, "but he would not be eligible to be a member because he has no qualification in architecture that we can discover."
Mr Graby said Minister for the Environment Dick Roche had lately given the RIAI his personal commitment that a long-delayed Building Control Bill, which would register the title of architect, would be introduced in the Dáil this autumn.
Mr Grant could not be contacted yesterday.