Hi °C | Lo °C U2's plans for a €150m Clarence Hotel revamp will be hit with another delay as An Bord Pleanala stalls over making a decision.
The planning board has indicated that a deadline for a ruling which was set for the end of this week will not be met.
It will be at least another month and a half before a decision can be made.
"It will be put back -- five or six weeks for sure," a Bord Pleanala source said.
The sheer workload faced by planning officials is understood to be the primary reason behind the expected delay.
By the time the decision is made, it will almost be a year since the initial planning application was lodged with Dublin City Council.
The council gave permission for the scheme on November 14 before an appeal was made to An Bord Pleanala.
A subsequent oral hearing was told that the demolition of the Clarence and its redesign may go against both local planning guidelines and Government legislation.
Existing laws allow for the demolition of protected structures in exceptional circumstances.
Council official Kieran Rose said: "The exceptional and particular circumstances in this case relate to the need to retain or enhance the special interest value of the structures [ie the hotel use], the excellence of the proposed development in terms of architecture and uses, the contribution to the city on a strategic level and at a local level in terms of Temple Bar."
But the Department of the Environment said it did not believe the scheme was of such architectural merit as to meet the exceptional circumstances stipulation laid down under the legislation.
The hotel's owners, who include U2's Bono and the Edge, said the Clarence had suffered financial difficulty in recent years and redevelopment was necessary to sustain it.
coup
Guitarist the Edge said the demolition of the Dublin hotel and its rebuilding to a design by British architect Norman Foster was "an incredible coup for Dublin city".
The owners propose to demolish all but the facades of the hotel to facilitate its expansion from 49 to 140 rooms and the addition of a metallic elliptical roof called the "sky catcher".
Conservationist Michael Smith described the proposed building as a "cannibalistic behemoth". He said the sky catcher looked like a spaceship which landed in the middle of Temple Bar.
Although the hotel and surrounding buildings are listed on the Record of Protected Structures, it is proposed that they will be demolished with their front facades only retained.
