Is that a hotel entrance or a public park? ask councillors

The new design for a lingering spot at the corner of Dame Street and South Great George’s Street looks more like “front of house for a hotel” than a pocket park, local councillors said at a meeting Monday.

The little site, about 10msq, used to have colourful benches, bike racks, and an art installation, until at least 2019. It was between Rick’s Burgers, and the neon “Why Go Bald” sign, on Dame Lane.

For years now, the site’s been boarded up, used as part of the revamp of the adjacent Mercantile Hotel. But that work’s wrapping up, and the developer is preparing to return the council’s patch to it.

On Monday, at a meeting of the council’s South East Area Committee, a council manager showed local councillors designs for the site. And they were not pleased, at all – at the look of the plans, and at not having had any input into them.

“It’s good to see it being brought back to the public,” said Green Party Councillor Claire Byrne. “However, in comparison to what was there previously, which was an interesting, colourful, fun space, this is very sterile, it’s a bit bland.”

Several councillors said it looked like the site had been designed to be a part of the hotel, including Social Democrats Councillor Eoin Hayes.

“It does look like it’s part of an extension of the hotel and I don’t think that’s what most citizens in Dublin want,” he said. “I think more generally, our city, and the city centre in particularly, has been taken over by hotels.”

Although independent Councillor Mannix Flynn said, “It’s a hell of a lot better than it was, and it’s a lot better than hoarding.”

Council manager Siobhan Maher, who was presenting the design, defended the lack of consultation, saying it would allow the parklet to be done and back open by the end of the year – and defended the look, as not as hotel-y as previous versions.

“We worked very hard with the design team to come to this conclusion because some of the other iterations did, as you say, look like front of house for the hotel,” Maher said.

New design

Maher told councillors at the meeting that she had done the earlier, more colourful design of the pocket park, back in 2014 – and it was meant to be temporary.

Byrne, the Green Party councillor, said she remembered it fondly. “It always used to warm my heart when we’d go past seeing people sitting there, seeing the bike racks full.”

In 2019, Orangeseed Designated Activity Company got planning permission from Dublin City Council to revamp the Mercantile hotel, with amendments in years since. In 2021, Google Street View images show it all boarded up.

“From out of nowhere it was completely boarded up overnight and given over to another hotel development to be used as a compound, with no notice to either councillors or the citizens,” Byrne said.

The space was closed off to facilitate “the crane etcetera” for the development, said Maher, the council manager, “so we didn’t have to close Dame Lane completely for the duration of the construction, it was to minimise the impact on the public”.

As part of the planning permission, Maher said, the company is required to restore that site to the council’s specifications.

The new design would use “the standards, the materials, the granite” from “the Grafton Street palette”, Maher said. There would be shrubbery, a big “iconic” honey locust tree, benches to sit on, and an art installation on the side of the hotel overlooking the parklet.

“This is an in-house design, from us, for their agreement and delivery,” Maher said.

The little park would be bordered on two sides by the hotel. On one side, a restaurant on the ground floor will have “trifolding doors” that would open up onto the plaza. At the corner, there’s an emergency exit. On the other side, there’s a “glazed wall”, Maher said.

Before the hotel’s revamp, there weren’t big walls of glass looking onto the parklet like this. All the windows looking out onto the park will provide “passive surveillance”, which is something the council wanted, Maher said.

The details of the art installation have yet to be decided, Maher said. The developer will propose something, and it’ll be up to them to maintain it, “but obviously what it is is for agreement”, Maher said.

There won’t be bike racks in this new verison of the park, Maher said. Byrne objected to this.

There is a shortage of bike parking in the area, she said. “Every bike rack is always full, every pole has two or three bikes locked to it, so we should be reinstating the bike parking here,” she said.

But Maher said that when the space was closed off, the bike parking was relocated to Stephen Street and Dame Court, “and still remains there, so there is no loss to the local area”.

Designed for who?

Byrne, the Green Party councillor, said that with the new design, the parklet “seems to be just an extension of the hotel and not really a public space or a pocket park anymore and it has the interest of the hotel at heart and not really the citizens”.

Labour Councillor Fiona Connelly said “it looks like it’s transitioning from a space that’s definitely very clearly a public space like a pocket park”.

“My concern is that it’s inclusive in terms of its geography that when you go into the space it wouldn’t feel like you’re going into a fancy hotel foyer,” she said.

Hayes, the Social Democrats councillor, said, “I just wonder if we’re putting the cart before the horse and the hotel interest before the public interest.”

Right to Change Councillor Pat Dunne said, “We’re looking at a hotel with a space to the corner of it. We’re not looking at a public park with a hotel behind it.”

“How are we going to deal with a situation in the future, if this was to go ahead, where hotel security are telling people to move on, out of our public space?” he asked.

But Maher, the council manager, said that “The space is absolutely for public use, it is not to be franchised by the hotel or anything like that.”

“It’ll enhance the area, not just the hotel,” Maher said. “The hotel, they’re not going to be able to use it without licensing and all of that, from us.”

Dunne, the Right to Change councillor, wondered who was going to take care of the space.

It’ll be Dublin City Council’s waste management section that keeps it clean, and the council’s parks department that takes care of the shrubs and tree, Maher said.

Dunne asked: “Are our parks section going to effectively maintain a piece of public land to enhance a hotel here in terms of making the hotel look good?”

Both Dunne and Flynn, the independent councillor, raised the question of whether it might be best to sell the space to the hotel and leave it to them to look after.

Lack of consultation

Maher presented the design to the councillors at the meeting “for noting”.

“Is this just a fait accompli?” Byrne asked. Why was there no public consultation? Why were councillors not consulted on the design?

“Is it because the hotel is paying for it?” she asked. “Because I have serious concerns about it if that is the case.”

It’s standard practise for the council to require developers to restore council property they use temporarily back to how it was or better, once they’re done, Maher said. That doesn’t require plans to go through the “Part 8” planning process, she said.

In the Part 8 process, council staff bring a design for something the council wants to build to councillors, there’s a public consultation, and councillors discuss and eventually vote on the design.

That’s a much lengthier and more expensive process for the council, Maher said.

“We’re coming to you for noting because it can be done by the end of the year if we get the go-ahead, it is ‘planning gain’, which means they are paying for what we tell them to put back in at no cost to Dublin City Council,” she said.

“Obviously if it’s a Part 8 and Dublin City Council do it we are paying for it. We’re doing all the work, we’re supplying the human resources, we’re doing procurement, eTender and all the rest of it and there’s considerable time and cost to doing that, when we actually have a solution that will deliver it by year end,” she said.

But Byrne and other councillors said they were not happy with this process, even if it was going to be quicker.

“But just for clarity though, the public have absolutely no input then on how this space is going to look and how it’s going to be used by them?” Byrne asked.

Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey said “there is sort of a principle here, and there is sort of a precedent”.

“That a small park in this instance but still a public space is being created and designed and put out there with no input from the public and not even really any input from the five local elected councillors,” he said.

In the end, the councillors noted the report.