Dublin City Council has shot down Johnny Ronan’s bid to increase the height of office blocks at Dublin’s Docklands. If the change to planning permission had been allowed an additional 1,000 Salesforce staff could have been accommodated.

In a double blow to the developer’s Spencer Place Development Co Ltd, the city council has also refused planning permission for a companion application to increase to 13 storeys a residential and apart-hotel plan in the Docklands.

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City planners issued the double refusal in spite of heavy lobbying of Government ministers and Dublin City Council by Mr Ronan and Salesforce over recent months in a bid to ease height restrictions on buildings in the Docklands.

The decisions are not unexpected, as Mr Ronan had sought a deferral on the council decisions in March.

This allowed Mr Ronan to go to the High Court concerning his plans to increase the height of his already permitted office, residential and apart-hotel developments.

However, last Thursday, the High Court rejected Mr Ronan’s argument, that new departmental guidelines superseded the height caps in the Special Development Zone where the Salesforce Tower is being developed.

A spokesman for Spencer Place Development Company said: “This refusal highlights the inflexibility of the current planning model and its inability to respond in a timely manner to new opportunities, changes in policy and overwhelming public support for taller buildings in the right locations. This is to the detriment of our capital city’s potential for growth.”

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