LIMERICK Council is to consider deciding on planning permission for a new lease of life at Limerick’s historic Toll Cottages by the owners of an award-winning city pub.
The decision to bring fresh life to the long-derelict buildings, a statement from the Council acknowledged, would represent a technical contravention of the Limerick Development Plan 2022 – 2028.
The Council said it intends to consider deciding to grant planning permission to Aengus and Rioghna D’Arcy – owners of the award-winning JJ Bowles pub on the banks of the River Shannon – for a change of use for the historic buildings at 1-4 Toll Cottages on Verdant Place to a café/bar with outdoor terrace.
The Council statement explained the change of use would be from residential to allow for a “café/bar with outdoor terrace, associated conservation and refurbishment of, and minor alterations to, existing one and two-storey structures, single-storey rear extension, and all ancillary site works”.
In 2024, following an expression of interest process, the Council’s evaluation committee accepted an offer made by the D’Arcy’s for the properties on the basis of reuse as a riverside café and bar, which was considered a suitable use.
Speaking to the Limerick Post last year, Aengus D’Arcy said: “I often looked over at the cottages and thought I would love to buy them if they came on the market.”
He said at the time that the café bar would cater for about 100 to 140 customers “and it will open during the day as well as in the evening”.
The couple’s plans would seek to breathe new life into the historic buildings for the first time in around five decades.
In its statement this past week, the local authority noted that “restaurant/café” and “public house” uses are “generally not acceptable” on lands zoned “existing residential”, and would “therefore materially contravene the land use zoning objectives” set out the Limerick Development Plan 2022 – 2028, which include to “provide for residential development, protect and improve existing residential amenity”.
However, the statement noted that the zoning in the area “is intended primarily for established housing areas. Existing residential amenity will be protected while allowing appropriate infill development. The quality of the zone will be enhanced with associated open space, community uses and where an acceptable standard of amenity can be maintained, a limited range of other uses that support the overall residential function of the area, such as schools, crèches, doctor’s surgeries, playing fields etc.”
Details of the development can be inspected at County Hall in Dooradoyle or from maps.limerick.ie/planning enquiry before April 21, with the deadline for submissions set for the same date.
A decision on the development is due by May 19.