TIL; That Bonobo (a pub in Dublin) successfully blocked the development of 52 social & affordable apartments



by Alba-Ruthenian

20 comments

  1. Loving the videos from this team. Really insightful.

    Side note, this apartment block should have been built no question.

  2. Weird title for the post. Are you suggesting that this development didn’t go ahead because of the pub Bonobo?

    From the video (3:24):

    >It’s important to stress that **we don’t take issue with the
    sincerity of bonobos owners or with the planning inspector**. Our issue lies solely with the increasingly centralized and undemocratic nature of the planning system.

  3. Why wouldn’t they be mad for a block of potential customers arriving nearby?

  5. God I hate the housing crisis. People need gaffs but I can’t get behind building loads of hideous apartment blocks.

  6. Being one of the only good pub/bar/chill restaurants in the city it’s justified.

  8. There is a comment on the YouTube video says the pub paid off the inspector, and has purchased the land and gone with a different developer? Is that true? That sounds really fucked up, even more than it already is.

  9. There’s few people more reactionary or conservative than owners of “cool” bars in my experience.

  12. terrible place for anyone to live next to busy road and pub

  15. I think top comment on YT summs it well:

    ​

    >This happens all the time, all over the country. The Irish population don’t want low rise cities, a small cohort of unelected people do, and they have an unreasonably high power to stop anything that could improve our cities.

  16. This is a real slick video but lacks any objective analysis. They have selected the bits of the story that fits neatly with their predetermined conclusion. The is the Case details from ABP website [https://www.pleanala.ie/en-ie/case/314691](https://www.pleanala.ie/en-ie/case/314691) . Anyone that is interested can read the full report. It is pretty short.

    **Important omissions:**

    * Local planning authority decided to grant app with conditions. Condition 6a was “ Fifth-floor level of block A shall be omitted; and proposed sixth floor plan relocated to fifth floor level – resulting in omission of 4 apartments.”
    * The applicant appealed the decision to grant too. Mainly because they didn’t want to comply with condition 6
    * There 7 was reasons given for refusal. One related to Bonobo.

    Even if Bonobo had not appealed the decision, it still would have gone to ABP because the applicant appealed it themselves. The applicant got lucky initially with a chancy application and then got greedy. They took a massive risk and appealed their own granted application to try get 4 extra apartments. It totally backfired in their faces. This is a perfect example of fuck around and find out. Even if Bonobo didn’t exist this would have went to ABP and it would have been refused for 6 reasons rather 7.

    The planning system is not causing the housing crisis. The planning system does not need a massive overhaul. Planning is one of the few part of our building system that works relatively well. If you think planning is bad wait until you find out about the rest 🙂

    One of the main problems with housing is everyone thinks their opinions matter.

  17. The owner of bonobo must have a pal In ABP… where I live numerous ‘let only’ developments were built despite being refused initially by local council as they didn’t meet LAP. Application was made directly to ABP by developers and given green light despite dozens of appeals from residents

  20. Seems like even a fart from local residents is able to block any kind of housing development in Ireland

Leave a Reply