A planning application by a company owned by controversial landlord Marc Godart to change the use of apartments in Dublin 8 to an aparthotel has been rejected by Dublin City Council.
Marc Godart, of Green Label Properties Investment Limited, last April issued notices of termination to tenants of Reuben House on the basis that he intended to sell the building. Up to 45 people were living in the apartments, sharing rooms, with an average of four bunk beds per room.
Tenants were evicted last August and their rooms advertised on holiday lettings website Airbnb as “hostel-style” accommodation. Owners of properties in Dublin must secure planning permission from the council to provide short-term or holiday letting, unless it is their own home that they rent out for less than three months a year.
Dublin City Council issued an enforcement notice ordering that short-term letting of Reuben House must stop by April 28th. However, rooms in the apartments remain advertised on the Airbnb platform until the end of August costing up to €100 a night for a bunk bed in a shared dorm and €280 a night for a private double room with shared bathroom.
Last month Reuben Street Hot Desks Ltd, a company also owned by Mr Godart, a 34-year-old Luxembourg native, applied to the council to change the use of Reuben House to an aparthotel.
The proposed development stated it would change the use of the floors between the ground and the fifth floor of the six-storey building to a 16 bedroom aparthotel of 691 sqm.
It would include a reception area, laundry and amenity area on the ground floor, and 16 bedroom suites on the remaining floors, some of which would include terraces.
The decision on the application, issued on April 28th, refused the proposed development, describing it as “detrimental to the wider objective of providing a rich and vibrant range of uses in the city centre” including residential, social, cultural and economic functions.
The decision letter, seen by The Irish Times, said the proposal would be “contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area”.
The replacement of permitted residential development with tourist accommodation would also result in a loss of housing stock, which there was a “general presumption against” in the Dublin City Development Plan 2022-2028, the letter stated.
The proposal would be “seriously injurious to the amenities of this area”, it said, adding that the standard of the tourist accommodation proposed was “poor, and does not meet criteria on unit styles and sizes”.
Labour councillor Darragh Moriarty said this was a “minor victory” in a “bigger picture”.
“The dam has been burst with tenants of this particular landlord coming forward recently, and this is a minor victory but the fact is a rogue landlord like this shouldn’t be able to operate, and there are likely others out there doing this sort of thing too,” he said.
It was “brilliant to see that these permanent homes won’t be converted to short-term tourist accommodation; it’s not what the area needs in the middle of a housing crisis”, he said.
An appeal can be made against the decision within four weeks, from April 28th.
