Residents of Dublin's Ringsend have welcomed a refusal of planning permission for a 15-storey tower.
An Bord Pleanála ruled that the development of a block of 48 apartments beside the East Link toll bridge would be "incongruous and incompatible" with the existing riverside streetscape.
The application by Melvin Properties was exempt from the Part V Social Housing obligation as the tower was to be built on a plot of land less than 0.1 hectares.
However, after permission was refused by Dublin City Council the developers offered to sell the entire block to the council for social housing.
In its ruling the planning board said that the block would be "visually dominant, obtrusive, overbearing and incongruous and incompatible" with its surroundings on York Road.
It also pointed out that the site was not within the Docklands Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) and that it was zoned Z1 "to protect, provide for and improve residential amenities".
Shay Connolly of the York Road Ad Hoc Development Group said that the development would have been "completely out of kilter".
There were 116 objections from the community and Mr Connolly said local residents were "delighted" with the refusal.
He said it was feared that this development would have been the start of high-rise development "on this side of the river" referring to on-going development in the north city.
