Plans to create a pedestrian area "as wide as Grafton Street" with multi-storey buildings in the centre of Killarney, Co Kerry, will have to be radically scaled down.
The buildings, at least one of which is a five-storey block with mezzanine, are considered too jarring and too massive for nearby laneways and for the open character of nearby streets and historic buildings, the planning authority has said.
Only 90 parking spaces - a quarter of what was needed - were applied for, the town council's planning department has told the developers. The developer would have to reduce the huge scale and "blankness" on the eastern elevation, Mr Michael Geraghty, acting assistant planning officer, said.
The plans were for buildings ranging from 22 metres to 19. "The very maximum" the council would consider would be 18.6 m, he said.
The council's request has been welcomed by those critical of recent high-rise development in Killarney. Cllr Donal Grady (Ind) said five- and six-storey-buildings were out of scale with historic buildings and streetscapes in Killarney.
The €15 million plans by Halstead Enterprises, owned by the O'Donoghue family of the Gleneagle and Scotts Gardens Hotels, are for a hotel, 16 retail units, apartments, a restaurant and bar, a leisure centre and a new street between College Street and the east Avenue Road. Mr Maurice Eoin O'Donoghue said that would involve the demolition of the existing Scotts Gardens Hotel and the Irish Transport Museum.