We live next to Conor McGregor’s property empire – we’ll fight towering eyesore that’s way too big, vow OAPs in 80s
A MARRIED OAP couple have vowed to fight Conor McGregor’s property empire as his mammoth new building project is making their lives a misery.
Pensioners Patrick and Rita McGowan have lodged an objection in a bid to KO multi-million euro plans by one of the star’s companies for an eight-storey 113-unit apartment block in Drimnagh, , close to where he grew up.
Unhappy Patrick told the Irish Sun: “It is causing us a lot of stress.”
Emrajare Ltd recently lodged the mixed-use plans with Dublin City Council that involves the demolition of the Marble Arch pub that McGregor purchased for a reported €2million two years ago.
The firm’s large-scale residential development application says they will then demolish the warehouse buildings and structures on site.
And in their place Emrajare will build a three-storey to eight-storey 113-unit apartment scheme and also a restaurant/bar/cafe, gym and a retail unit on the 0.72-acre site.
There will be 57 two-bed units, 53 one-bed units and three studios.
It lies adjacent to the ‘Heidelberg site’ which has planning permission for a nine-storey 188 build-to-rent apartment scheme that McGregor has bought. Preliminary enabling works have commenced on site.
But speaking exclusively to The Irish Sun last night, livid locals branded the scale of the scheme as “excessive” and warned it will “invade our privacy”.
OAPs Patrick and Rita told how they have lived at their address on Galtymore Road in Drimnagh — beside the McGregor development — “in peace” for decades.
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Rita was born and reared in the area and has called the road home for 81 years, with husband Patrick living there for 55 years.
But the OAPs say “noisy, dirty and dusty” construction work on the Heidelberg site is causing them “upset, trauma and taking a detrimental toll on our health, family life and well being”.
And the McGowans fear that the new scheme before the council will be a towering “eyesore”.
Worried Patrick told the Irish Sun an eight-storey apartment complex would “ruin our privacy” and devalue their property.
Patrick told the Irish Sun: “It is causing us a lot of stress.
“The wife was born and reared here. The wife has been here 81 years. I’m here 55 years. There’s a number of developments.
“We’re objecting to the scale of it. It is blocking us off completely.
'EYESORE'
"It is at the back of our house. That’s the eyesore there.
“They are doing work at the minute on one of the sites. Then there are other developments.
“It’s going to three storeys out our back, then the middle is going to be six and then eight or nine storeys. I’m hoping the planners listen to us.
“I can’t see it being stopped really myself. Our home is only a normal small home. With these plans, your privacy is gone.”
Patrick and Rita have joined a number of Drimnagh residents in lodging an objection with council chiefs “to the scale and the density” of the planned development.
And in a message to McGregor, Patrick pleaded: “Keep it a little smaller.”
Asked if he thought the controversial Octagon fighter would listen, he added: “I doubt it though, somehow or other. Money talks.”
PRIVACY PAIN
Preliminary enabling works have commenced on the Heidelberg site, with the OAPs saying they have been driven mad by pile driving.
Reacting to the latest plans for development, Rita, 81, told The Irish Sun: “It’s a bit much.
“These developments will be looking in (to our house). We used to sit down the back of the garden but that will be all gone for us now. We won’t be able to sit there, the building will be overlooking us.
“Hopefully he listens to us. They’ve started some works and there is going to be more development. All you see is machines and machines.
“It used to be cabbage out there years ago, it was like a little farm land. And then it was taken over.
OBJECTION CONCERNS
“I think they have the permission for the first development but now there is more on the way. It is too much. We just have to wait and see what happens.”
In an objection lodged before the council on behalf of the Drimnagh Residents Community Group, chair John Corr outlined their concerns.
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He said: “This is an area consisting of two and three bedroom family homes built in the 1930s with an ageing community who stand to lose their peace of mind, privacy and will encounter several years of disruption, noise and most of all devaluation of their properties.”
On behalf of the group, Mr Corr added: “The Grand Canal, which is a tremendous asset to our local residents and a facility that we are working with Waterways Ireland to make more user friendly, will now be overshadowed and deprived of natural sunlight for large portions of the day.”
