Residents of Crampton Buildings in Temple Bar are fighting to save their courtyard, a "green oasis" in the heart of Dublin, from being engulfed by a large restaurant with apartments overhead.
The residents, all of whom have been tenants of Dublin City Council since 1998, say they "cannot express strongly enough the anxiety, anger and stress" they feel about "this oversized and destructive proposal".
Kensall Green Ltd, a company associated with property developers Treasury Holdings, is seeking permission to cover the courtyard with a 360-seat restaurant, install a new roof garden on top and build up the Asdill's Row frontage.
The residents point out that Crampton Buildings, which was built in the 1890s by Dublin Artisan Dwellings, is one of only two social housing schemes in Temple Bar and the "only remaining indigenous residential community" in the area.
"The people living here, from many different backgrounds, make a good example of a well-balanced and integrated social mix. However, it is the exceptional design of the building \ enables us all to live together successfully."
Though two new apartments are proposed by the developers, who own all the retail space at street level, access to these units would be gated from the new roof garden. Thus, they would "not integrate with the rest of the community".
The existing courtyard, which was planted with trees and shrubs in the early 1990s as part of the Greening Temple Bar programme, accommodates some car parking as well as a "wormery" for recycling kitchen waste into garden compost.
"The courtyard of Crampton Buildings was originally one of few open spaces in Temple Bar, setting an example for the redevelopment of the area. It is a precious corner of light and air in the dark narrow canyons of the surrounding city streets."
In their lengthy letter objecting to its enclosure, the residents say the courtyard's open character, with a view of "workers' flats of simple and humble design", is admired by passers-by and often photographed by tourists.
"This planning application proposes to block out irreversibly the view of the building from Asdill's Row. It will deprive Temple Bar of the visual amenity of a most unusual architectural structure and character," the letter says.
The new "patio-type" roof garden, on different levels, would not be "a natural garden sustaining bird life", the residents claim. It would need raised beds, several feet high, to sustain new trees and would not be a suitable place for children to play.
It would also be "surrounded by intensive industrial noise, hum and vibration" from the proposed restaurant underneath, which would "bring new noise nuisance" to the area. "Residents would be enclosed as if in the open hold of a ship," the letter says.
Noting that 10 of the 18 retail units in Crampton Buildings had already been converted into restaurants, the residents say these units create "vast amounts of waste, noise and greasy fumes night and day" while "greedily over-using" water.
