An Taisce – The National Trust for Ireland
Tailor’s Hall, Back Lane, Dublin 8
Tel: 01 4541 786 Fax: 01 4533 255
Email: planning@antaisce.org
20100723-dcc-dev plan draft
Planning Office 23rd July 2010
Dublin City Council
Civic Offices
Wood Quay
Dublin 8
Dear Sir / Madam,
SUBMISSION ON DUBLIN CITY DEVELOPMENT PLAN
Dublin City Council management are this month seeking to undermine decades of successful planning policy in Dublin. They are pushing through new Draft Development Plan for adoption by elected councillors, intended to fuel a future property boom.
Amid the general fiasco that has characterised Irish planning over the last 60 years, there was at least one achievement of maintaining Dublin as one of Europe's low rise major historic cities. This is now to be disregarded.
While claiming to maintain most of the "low rise "character of the city, the Draft Plan in fact makes a violent abuse of language in adopting terminology which describes low rise as up to 8 story's, medium rise as 8 to 16 stories, and high rise as over 16 stories.
The argument used to justify scrapping decades of planning policy on building height and scale, is to strengthen the City Council area. However Dublin City Council has up to now through its membership, of the Dublin and Mid East Regional Authority colluded in the chaotic development of the surrounding counties which has created some of Europe's worst urban sprawl. The current and previous Managers of Dublin City Council have been ineffective in seeking the compliance of the other local authorities in the Greater Dublin Area with the 1999 Strategic Planning Guideline sand 2004 Regional Planning Guidelines.
Over the last few years in particular Dublin City Council has systemically disregarded the provisions of its current Development Plan in major applications affecting the city centre and older suburbs. This is reflected in the number of decisions overturned or significantly varied by An Bord Pleanala and the subject to investigation by the Minister for Environment Heritage and Local Government.
Now management are seeking the adoption of Draft Plan, intended to created future development assault on the cits established character and skyline, on provisions that are vague, and badly conceived. It is unclear as to how much of the real motive is the result of lobbying from construction and property interest and financial considerations development levies and rates.
Rather that providing clarity, the plan is going to create years planning rows and appeals to an Bord Pleanala of if a new boom is generated. It would only take a few badly sited out of scale buildings to irrevocably damage the city's irreplaceable character.
The single biggest difficulty with the Dev. Plan is its impenetrability. In accordance with the law, clarity in the Development Plan was sought by members of the public at every public meeting held since the start of the Draft Plan process as well as in written submissions. (In May 2008 the Cicol Ltd v. An Bord Pleanala judgement referred to an earlier judgement (McCarthy J. in In re X.J.S. Investments Ltd [1986] in which it was indicated that Development Plans should be properly construed in their ordinary meaning as would be understood by members of the public. It states:
“... a court, in interpreting a development plan, should ask itself what would a reasonably intelligent person, having no particular expertise in law or town planning, make of the relevant provision?” )
The document that has been produced is laden with utterly incomprehensible jargon – even those who have experience in planning are at a loss.
This impenetrability is on two counts
1) The language and terminology are repeatedly used in a way that can only be described as nonsensical.
In seeking assistance from two legal friends re the interpretation of Par 13.4 and in particular the “Framework for Sustainable Dublin City Council”, they had NO idea what any of it meant. Architects and Planners asked to explain Section 16.1.10 and did not understand or could not see the relevance of this section. It purports to form the basis for a set of criteria – surely we should be able to expect the Plan to identify the criteria.
2) The content of the Plan is utterly confusing and aspects of it are, we suggest, unworkable in practice.
The debate around the height issue has been made very confusing for the public due to a number of issues
a) There are two definitions of low rise in the Draft Plan, one for the inner city and for office development within 1 kilometre of “rail hubs” (which are not actually hubs at all – just stations) and another one for the outer city. The low rise threshold of 25m identified for the inner city and along rail ‘hubs’, being approx. 3 storeys higher than the generally accepted Georgian height of Dublin (15m), cannot actually be considered low rise as per the accepted definition of a low rise building i.e. “a building that is significantly higher than neighbouring or surrounding buildings”.
b) It is not at all clear how it is to be determined what the exact permitted height would be on a site along a “rail hub” in the outer city within a zoning designation that permits both office and residential use
c) Given the specific identification of “office” and “residential” use, the question arises as to what height would be permitted if the use applied for was another permitted under the zoning designation. If, for example a community facility were being applied for which height category would it fall into or could it be argued that since it’s neither office nor residential use then there would be no height limit at all? Could it be argued that hospitals for example can be any height?
The Manager’s Report presented to Councillors in May following the receipt of submissions from the public, rather than taking on board the hundreds of submissions from the public opposing high rise development in the city, focussed instead on a handful of submissions that were received from land owners (see Sec 17.6 ref to ESB, St James’s Hospital and Royal College of Surgeons), which stated that 25m was too low. This prompted the Manager to further complicate the definition of low rise by introducing yet another height to be included in the low rise definition. Ignoring the fact that any major sites in the city could have a Local Area Plan drawn up should it be decided that high buildings would be desirable on the site, the Manager has chosen to determine that the height of the entire inner city as well as within 1 km of rail lines, DART and METRO stations should be allowed to increase to 33m if what is proposed is office use – this is the equivalent of 11 residential storeys and it’s to be defined as low!!
So now the debate before City Councillors during the last week of July is not just whether to increase the height of the inner city by approx. 3 storeys (and “rail hubs” when office use is proposed), but whether to virtually double the height of the city. The unworkable scenario whereby the use on the site determines what height would be allowed is now extended from the “Rail Hubs” to include the whole inner city area.
In addition to the general increase in height throughout the city, the Draft Plan also calls for buildings up to 50m to be considered “mid rise” and to be located in areas of the inner city namely Phibsborough, Grangegorman (Thomas St. West) and Digital Hub and and 6 acres in the outer city, (Par. 17.6.2) and “high rise” buildings of over 50m to be located in Docklands, Connolly, Heuston and George’s Quay.
Despite Dublin City Council Management having had 10 years to carry out the further study that was recommended as a follow-up on the only comprehensive high rise study ever conducted in Dublin (the DEGW). The further detailed study that was called for has never been undertaken.
In addition to the hugely increased heights being recommended by the Manager, the proposal is also to dramatically increase densities. While increased densities can certainly be accommodated in parts of the city, the requirement for minimum densities of 100uph throughout the inner city is excessive. (Any of the density reports/studies that I’ve looked at indicate that a MINIMUM density of 100 is really very high indeed). UK government recommendations refer to minimum densities of 30-50 uph in built-up areas.
Soon after the Draft Plan went on Public display (Dec. 22nd) the Irish Times quoted a Dublin City Council official as saying that there were “modest” changes proposed to the Development Plan. The Manager seems to be very aware that the changes are far from “modest”. At the Dec 2nd City Council debate on the Draft Plan he stated “25m and 19m in a lot of the city is what’s going to be predominant in terms of new development”. (I interpreted that to mean the 25m which was permitted throughout the inner city as well as for office use along “rail hubs” and the 19m permitted elsewhere) He went on to state “I can guarantee you that is very, very low in respect of any other European city”.
The current development slowdown provides the opportunity of a pause to plan for a more sustainable future. This requires proper integrated planning for the greater Dublin area which current local authority boundary structures is failing to provide.
The Dublin City Draft Plan as currently proposed will fuel a future splurge of land speculation and undermine decades of the planning control that has maintained Dublin as a historic low rise major European city. The plan should in-short be summarily.
Yours Sincerely
Ian Lumley
Heritage Officer