Google's Bolands Mills development is facing opposition from locals. — Getty Images/The New York Times
A small group of Dublin residents standing up to their US$2.3 trillion (RM10.73 trillion) neighbours after writing to protest Google’s plans to build a pub on its infamous campus in the city centre, increasing tensions as the tech giant’s lofty new development encroaches on their homes.
Google Ireland filed an application with Dublin City Council last month to convert a ground floor and lower ground floor unit at its major new development from a “Retail/Café/Restaurant/Marketplace” to a “Public House”.
It’s part of a more comprehensive development of Bolands Mills, a patch of land a few hundred meters away from Google’s main office block.
The former flour mill is expected to become a new retail and hospitality hub for Dubliners, with Google CEO Sundar Pichai promising in 2022 to keep business rates at an affordable level to attract local entrepreneurs.
However, seven residents on the adjacent Barrow Street have written to the council to oppose those plans.
Locals raised fears about increased anti-social behaviour from people drinking nearby, which it said posed a risk to the safety of the children who lived in the area.
The letter’s signatories added that there were no public toilets in the local area, specifically between the site of the proposed pub and the local DART rail station.
“Residents already suffer from members of the public urinating on Barrow Street outside of their homes late at night,” opponents concluded.
A representative for Google didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Google’s Dublin conundrum
Since opening its first site in Dublin in 2003, Google has formed an uneasy relationship with the city’s residents.
The tech giant has given high-income jobs to several Irish natives and is regularly ranked as the country’s most attractive employer.
However, that investment is part of the reason behind a major housing crisis in Ireland’s capital, which has come alongside population growth and stalled house-building.
In November 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Google said it would offer 46 Bolands Mills apartments to front-line workers at reduced rent. Google was one of several companies, including Ryanair and Killarney Hotels Collection, that offered subsidised housing in the capital.
Earlier this year, Google said it planned to hand over those 46 apartments to a social housing trust by the end of 2024.
‘Living on Google’s campus’
Residents on Barrow Street have had a front-row seat to Google’s expansion over the last couple of decades. However, they appear to have reached a breaking point from “effectively living on Google’s campus.”
A slightly ironic look at Google Maps would explain why.
Opponents of the pub live in a block of two-story terraced homes just down the road from 47,000 square-meter European headquarters, where the company employs around 5,500 people.
But across the road is the more pressing matter of Bolands Mills, the new development that towers over the residents’ comparably tiny homes.
The site draws parallels with the opening scene of Pixar’s Up, where cantankerous widow Carl Fredricksen resists planners’ attempts to construct a major development on top of his quaint home.
The outcome of residents’ latest David vs Goliath tussle with a wealthy tech giant is unclear, but after Dublin locals recently defeated UFC fighter Conor McGregor’s plans for his own rowdy pub, they might feel more confident than usual. – Fortune.com/The New York Times
