An Irish Planning Students Blog

A GOVERNMENT review of retail planning guidelines will examine the desirability of allowing out-of-town retail centres to offer free parking for customers.
The question of introducing parking charges at shopping centres and retail parks is one of a number of key issues which will be examined by the review announced yesterday.

It will also examine the current cap of 3,500sq m for floorspace for retail units.

The Minister of State with responsibility for planning policy Ciarán Cuffe has said the review is needed to retain a balance and ensure there is an “even playing field” between historic city and town centres and large out-of-town centres.

Mr Cuffe has said that the current guidelines, though less than a decade old, may no longer be appropriate for a retail sector that has seen fundamental changes in recent years. (more…)

I was reading the MetroHearald today on the bus and i noticed a public notice on page 11. I have scanned in a copy of the notice below for your viewing pleasure. (Click for full size) I hope the process is a speedy one. Public consultation starts on the 30th of June (next Wednesday). It will be great to see trams on O’Connell Street once again!

MAJOR NEW planning legislation to be published today will dramatically clamp down on retentions for large developments and on the rampant expansion of quarries.

The Planning Bill 2010 will be published by Minister for the Environment John Gormley and is partly designed to target problems that persistently cropped up during the property boom which existing planning legislation was not equipped to deal with.

On the retention issue, the Bill will require that it will no longer be possible for planning permission to be granted for retention of developments built without planning permission, where the development would have required an environmental impact assessment (EIA).

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PROPERTY DEVELOPERS and planning authorities largely ignored the National Spatial Strategy in the four years to 2006, a review of the strategy has found.

The National Spatial Strategy Update and Outlook Report revealed housing development and population increases were not directed primarily at nine major growth “gateways”, as planned in the strategy.

Instead the strongest growth between 2002 and 2006 took place away from existing cities or identified gateways, in smaller satellite towns.

The Dublin commuter belt – but not the city – saw the strongest growth of 5.2 per cent per annum. Similarly, the commuter belt around Galway saw annual growth of 3.6 per cent, while in the Cork commuter belt the growth rate was 3.5 per cent per annum.

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LONG-RUNNING plans for a new town centre which straddles the border of counties Dublin and Wicklow have been approved by An Bord Pleanála.

The €2 billion development incorporates more then 900 new homes – including some 600 apartments, a hotel, leisure facilities, offices, a cinema, bars and more than 100 new shops.

Also envisaged is a greatly improved road link to the M11, and a major Office of Public Works flood protection scheme for the river Dargle.

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An Bord Pleanála has today refused the Dublin Port Company permission to implement an expansion plan for the port.

The company had applied to develop additional facilities with access to deepwater berths at the north eastern part of Dublin Port, off Alexandra Road through infilling some 95 acres.

The controversial plans had attracted more than 100 objections, including one from Dublin City Council calling them “premature”.

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You may have noticed a serious lack of activity on the blog lately, while also due to there not being too much going on in the planning world this week I too like many other students have been doing exams. Only one more day to go thank god!

Less than 24 hours until summer time!!!

You can look forward to many more posts after the weekend and the return of the short lived weekend newspaper review!

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Now if we could stop mucking about and spend the money on the Metro North, the InterConnector and continue with the other LUAS extensions it would be great!

WITH A flash and a large plume of smoke, the last piece of railway track was welded into place on the Luas Cherrywood extension yesterday.

The €300 million extension to the line, which is expected to open to the public in October, is already wired and “live”, with testing of trams expected to begin late next month. (more…)

SLIGO COULD lose €100 million in Government funding if the deadlock over  a planned bridge continues, a trade union leader warned yesterday.

Community leaders have also warned that the multimillion euro Cranmore Regeneration project is now at risk in an area which has endured decades of poverty and neglect.

The project which got the green light in 2007 has seen 65 boarded-up houses in the sprawling local authority estate demolished. But it is now stalled following a decision by councillors to delete plans for the Eastern link bridge from the Sligo and Environs Development Plan.

Councillors have repeatedly insisted that the Cranmore project was a stand alone one but on a visit to Sligo  last November Minister for Housing Michael Finneran insisted  that it  was inextricably linked to the  bridge. He urged the councillors to draw up a master plan for the area following a “period of reflection”.

Mr Finneran estimated that the amount of State funding at risk was up to €100 million given the cost of providing the bridge, the access routes and refurbishing the 500-house Cranmore estate.

Hugh McConville  chairman of the Sligo Council of Trade Unions yesterday warned that there was now “a real danger” that Sligo would lose massive public investment at a time when 100 local retail units  are closed and unemployment has soared.

Acknowledging the “genuine difficulties” involved for those meeting the needs of all Sligo residents, he said it was vital at this stage that decisions be made to ensure that Sligo does not lose out. “We are very worried from a jobs perspective”, he said.

Councillors opposed  the bridge, which got the go ahead from An Bord Pleanála, because of concerns about its impact on a long established residential neighbourhood in the Doorly Park area of Sligo. Residents say their community will be split in two, that several houses will be demolished on foot of compulsory purchase orders and that 20,000 cars will pass by their doors every day  in what is now a very tranquil neighbourhood.

Councillors had urged officials to find an alternative location for the bridge but the National Parks and Wildlife Service this week told them the entire area was  protected by a habitats directive.

Michelle McMorrow, chairwoman of the Cranmore Community Co-operative has pleaded with councillors to reinstate the Eastern link bridge,  saying that it would provide much needed employment as well as critical access to Sligo General Hospital and IT Sligo.

She said the community had  a vision and wanted to reverse  the legacy of poverty and neglect.

Three people have been murdered in Cranmore in recent years but Ms McMorrow said the community had fought back and had recently won a National Pride of Place award.

“I grew up here  at a time when if you were applying for jobs you could not give Cranmore as your address,” she said.

“A lot of work had been done here getting the community involved and we do not want it to slip away now. Sligo is crying out for this investment. Any town in Ireland would.”

IrishTimes

THE PLANNING tribunal accepted it must pay the multimillion-euro costs incurred by two directors of Joseph Murphy Structural Engineers in their dealings with it over 163 days.

The pair successfully challenged the tribunal’s refusal to allow the costs and the Supreme Court yesterday ordered the tribunal to pay the legal costs of proceedings by Joseph Murphy jnr, Frank Reynolds and JMSE Ltd in the High and Supreme Courts.

The court also overturned an earlier High Court order requiring the applicants to pay the State’s costs in the High Court.

A unanimous Supreme Court decision last week overturned the tribunal’s refusal to allow the JMSE side the substantial costs of their dealings with the tribunal over 163 days. The judgment set out parameters for assessing entitlement to costs.

The Supreme Court ruled that findings by former tribunal chairman Mr Justice Feargus Flood that the directors “obstructed and hindered” its inquiries were outside the tribunal’s terms of reference, unlawful and invalid, and could not form a basis for refusing costs.

The court stressed the tribunal had been dealing only with an application by the JMSE side for its costs and had not addressed any applications for costs against JMSE. It also stressed a tribunal is entitled to take into account lack of co-operation when addressing costs.

The findings of obstruction and hindrance were inextricably linked with the tribunal’s substantial finding of corruption against the directors (which they had not appealed) and was therefore linked with a criminal offence, the court ruled. Those findings were unlawful as the tribunal does not constitute the administration of justice.

IrishTimes