So as the end of the planning procedure element of the redevelopment of St Brendans Hospital or Grangegorman as we have all come to know draws to a close, what do we think of it? Will it be built? Should it be built in absence of the LUAS line which is supposed to serve it directly but only kind of does because it skirts along one edge? (Although it has a slightly better chance of survival than metro north)

Its funny when i started in DIT as many who came before can say, on the my first day i was told by the time your in 4th year you’ll be in Grangegorman, so like 10 years after DIT embarked down the road, finally settling on the Strategic Development Zone model last year, planning is drawing to a close.

The Masterplan  is available on the Grangegorman Development Agency website

The last hurdle to jump before the final Bord Decision, is the Oral Hearing. I think it might be useful for anyone even remotely interested in how the process works to make the trip to Bord Pleanala at 64 Marlborough Street on 24th November. Full details below:

ZD2005
Grangegorman, Dublin 7. (GRANGEGORMAN)

Case Type:
Planning Scheme in Strategic Devel. Zone (Board Reference: PL29Z.ZD2005)

Description
Grangegorman Strategic Development Zone Planning Scheme

Date lodged
19/08/2011

Decide By
22/12/2011

Location:
Offices of An Bord Pleanála

Date:
10:00, 24/11/2011

Source: pleanala.ie

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Do you like what you have just read? Maybe you are interested in being a guest writer too. Email me at colinb@dt106ers.com

Related posts:

1. The Bord are to reopen oral hearing into Dublin Port land infill
2. Bag O’ Links 31/07/2011 Incinerators, Transport, Dublin Bus and Grangegorman
3. ABP Hearing on plan for power plant in Tarbert, Kerry

As part of my work in the Bord I did a small bit of research into the whole area of all the wind turbine applications that passed through the boards doors. The idea was to identify the main issues that crop up in all the planning appeals.

All cases which involved wind turbines were identified. Below is a map of all the granted applications by the Bord since 1998 for applications involving 6 turbines or more:

Link to the Larger Map (Pls note some of the geolocated points are in the wrong location these will be fixed in time)

By the Numbers

In total 1530 turbines were applied for, only 872 were granted permission on appeal.

The county with the greatest number of turbines with permission is Mayo with 216 turbines, the majority of which are part of the Bellacorrick wind farm.

Next week I will dig a little deeper into the data that I gathered on our windfarms and detail some of the main issues considered during the assessment of these applications including links to the spreadsheets containing the data. However until then, the big question is just how many of these have been built?

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Related posts:

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3. Google does wind farms, why not here?

Incinerators

Indaver Ireland are pursuing a Judicial review of the Bord Pleanala decision to refuse permission for the planned Waster to Energy facility (Incinerator) at Ringaskiddy on the a number of grounds including strangely that the board made conclusive decision prior to the completion of an EIS

Merging

The talk of merging local authorities continues, this week minister Hogan announced that Tipperary North and South county councils are to be merged for the 2014 local elections. This along with the merging of Limerick county and city reduces the number of LA’s by 2.

 Transport

Fantastic piece by Jarret Walker over at HumanTransit.org on how a transport planner might approach the designing a transit network for high ridership in a dense city. His example Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Network Direct

Our own network reshuffle / redesign continues apace with Dublin Bus releasing revised proposals for the last areas of the Network Direct Phase II to be implemented in the Autumn (whenever that is!). The most important for me is the Santry area as thats where I live:

Just to recap the two areas realeased are:

• Swords / Santry / Rathfarnham / Firhouse / Ballycullen / Terenure - Route Diagram [HERE]
• Ballinteer / Dundrum / Milltown / Ranelagh / Beaumont - Route Diagram [HERE]

 DIT Grangegorman Planning Scheme

The long awaited restructuring of DIT and its spread out buildings has made some progress this week. It has been adopted through a variation into the Dublin City Development Plan 2011 – 2017 with one final hurdle to overcome being the probable appeal of the scheme to Bord Pleanala by some local interest groups. Details of the plan can be found at www.ggda.ie and www.dublincity.ie

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

Related posts:

1. Things to look out for in 2011
2. [UPDATE] Dublin Transport Map v1.5
3. Grangegorman SDZ Oral Hearing – The last hurdle?

It’s pretty decent if i do say so myself, from the fifth floor (the board room level) you’ve got panoramic views of the city. Below is a taster view looking to the Northside. The bottom of North Great Georges street is cut off though, due to my amazing photography skills! One day we saw David Norris strolling down the street and yes you can hear his booming voice 5 stories up!

View from the Top

(Click for full Glory) View from the Top Photo: Colin Broderick

As always!

Comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader!

No related posts.

Proposed Incinerator location (Indaver Ireland)

An Bord Pleanla has refused planning permission by direction today for the proposed amended Waster to Energy Hazardous Waste Plant (for you and me an incinerator).

I can’t seem to find the direction on the Bord’s website yet however the original bord file can be found here.

As the application was considered strategic infrastructure it has its own website: www.ringaskiddywastetoenergy.ie

This post will be update when the conditions for refusal become available. But one can safely assume as part of the EIS, Indavor could not mitigate against the concerns raised in relation to flooding and emissions.

Below is the article from the irish times on the news:

An Bord Pleanála has refused planning permission to Indaver Ireland for a proposed €150 million twin incinerator project in Cork harbour.

An Bord Pleanála signed off on the decision yesterday for the proposal for the Ringaskiddy site and communicated the decision to the various parties today.

Indaver Ireland had originally applied for planning permission for a 100,000 tonne hazardous waste incinerator, a 140,000 tonnes municipal waste incinerator and a transfer station.

In January 2010, Bord Pleánala refused planning for the municipal waste incinerator but said it was considering granting planning for the hazardous waste incinerator and the transfer station.

It said Indaver should make some changes to its environmental impact statement to address concerns over flooding, coastal erosion and revised emissions.

In May 2010, Indaver reduced the size of the buildings by 40 per cent while retaining the same capacity while it also made changes so water would be recycled rather than discharged.

Environmental group Chase has campaigned against the project saying the proposed site is unsuitable due to risk of flooding and erosion.

During a four-week oral hearing in May and June 2009, the group also questioned the need for the facility and expressed concern about its impact on public health in the harbour area.

IrishTimes - BARRY ROCHE

As always folks comments are welcome, you can follow me on the tweet machine @Rusty1052. Only want the blog? Subscribe to the RSS Feed with your favorite reader! Finally, Rest in Peace Mr. Brian Lenhian.

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Bord Pleanála has approved Shell E&P Ireland’s third proposed route for the final section of the Corrib gas pipeline with 58 conditions.

Inspector Martin Nolan, who chaired last year’s resumed oral hearing on the revised plan, says that the application’s “clarity and transparency” provides “confidence that the safety of the public is fully protected, and that the public will not be put at risk”.

He said this new plan submitted by Shell and partners last year was the “most suitable, the shortest and the most obvious route for this development”.

The route involves constructing a 4.2m-wide tunnel in Sruwaddacon estuary for a pipe carrying high pressure raw gas from the landfall at Glengad. The final section will run overland to the gas terminal already completed at Ballinaboy.

The offshore pipeline has already been laid.

Sruwaddacon estuary is a special area of conservation (SAC), running between the communities of Rossport, Pollathomas, Glengad and Aughoose. Among the groups which made submissions to Bord Pleanála on health and safety issues was the local national school at Pollathomas

Mr Nolan said the development was a “major project by any measure”, but the modifications proposed would have a “remarkably light impact on the pristine environment of the area”.

A previous application submitted by Shell and Corrib gas partners was rejected by Bord Pleanála as half of it was deemed unacceptable on safety grounds due to proximity to housing.

Mr Nolan said the board’s decision to “adopt a consequence based routing distance was a key driver” which “provided the impetus for Shell to moderate the consequence of a gas release” from the pipeline.

“Corrib will, I have no doubt, provide impetus for future expansion of the natural gas network in Ireland and I expect it will provide impetus for additional exploration off the coast,” Mr Nolan said. “Corrib will in my view provide opportunity for Mayo in particular to develop as a new energy producing centre.”

However, he said that new momentum was required to “engage the local community and to ensure the benefits of the scheme are developed and harnessed locally”.

He has recommended that an €8.5 million “community gain investment fund” be paid over five years by Shell and partners, which would be held in trust by Mayo County Council.

He said he believed this fund would “provide a strong enabling community gain which can be developed with leadership at every level into a long term economic and social stimulus for the area locally, but regionally as well”.

He praised Government policy on developing gas energy, but said that “further strategic planning” was required if “the depths of controversy and conflict seen in the Corrib scheme are to be avoided in future”.

“Standards, strategic development sites, strategic corridors, clear process requirements for all consents, open procedures for decision making, transparency in presentation of projects” were areas which had “led to the depth of conflict and controversy seen in the Corrib scheme”, Mr Nolan said.

Irish Times – LORNA SIGGINS, Western Correspondent

Related posts:

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2. An Taisce says Shell approval ‘legally flawed’
3. Proposed route for Corrib pipeline unsafe, Shell told

RTÉ HAS been granted planning permission by An Bord Pleanála for a phased €350 million redevelopment of the northern half of its Montrose campus in Donnybrook, Dublin, over a period of 10 years.

The board’s decision, which is subject to 23 conditions, was based on its consideration of the Dublin City Development Plan as well as “the established use of the site, the pattern of development in the vicinity and the design and layout” of the scheme.

However, plans to sell the southern part of the 31-acre site have been constrained by a condition that the use of buildings to be retained “shall be restricted to use by RTÉ staff only and shall not be sold or leased separately” unless permission is granted.

Objectors to the proposed development included An Taisce, the German embassy, billionaire financier Dermot Desmond, who has a house on nearby Ailesbury Road, and several other local residents, who claimed that it would be out of scale.

The planning board ruled that it would be “an acceptable form of development at this location, within the setting of the protected structures and the architectural quality of the campus” and that it would not seriously injure the amenities of the area.

RTÉ said it was pleased to learn of the board’s decision to approve what the national broadcaster calls its “Project 2025” plan for the “long-term modernisation” of its production facilities in Donnybrook, which originally date from 1962.

“The securing of planning permission is an important milestone in a project which commenced in 2002 and which aims to ensure that RTÉ is properly equipped to meet its obligations in a digital age,” the station said.

It made no reference to funding.

Designed by Scott Tallon Walker, the new broadcasting complex would extend to more than 63,500sq m (683,500sq ft) above basement level in buildings ranging from nearly 11m to 36m in height – the equivalent of nine storeys.

They would house television and radio studios, multi-purpose spaces, newsrooms, orchestra, office accommodation and associated facilities, sound stages, set storage areas, broadcasting technology suites, workshops, a creche and parking for 820 cars.

It would involve demolishing the remnants of a walled garden, the existing radio building, a squat multistorey car park to the rear, a single storey creche, a sound stage-library building, a set storage building and an outdoor set used by Fair City.

The board has also specified that a full architectural and photographic survey of the Radio Centre be carried out prior to commencement of development, with a copy to be lodged in the Irish Architectural Archive.

Its decision related to revised plans submitted by the architects during the course of the appeal.

IrishTimes

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Well this pretty much snook in under the radar! I hadn’t heard a peep from this project, I assumed it was dead and buried for another time, how wrong was I!? Very happy to know i was wrong! From the RPA:

The Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) has today (20th October 2010) announced its intention to apply to An Bord Pleanála for a Railway Order for Metro West, a light railway from Old Blessington Road, Tallaght to Dardistown, just south of Dublin Airport. The railway order, if granted, would permit RPA to construct, operate and maintain the Metro West light railway.

The proposed line begins at a new terminus in the median of Belgard Road adjacent to the Institute of Technology Tallaght. The line runs northwards over the Luas Red Line at Kilnamanagh/Belgard to Clondalkin and onwards to Quarryvale before crossing the River Liffey on a new bridge. The route continues to Porterstown and Blanchardstown, past the National Aquatic Centre and northwards to Cappoge and Meakstown before ending at a connection with Metro North at Dardistown. Full details of the proposed route, stops, Park & Ride and other details are available here on this website.

The Metro West project is a key element of Transport 21, the governments transport investment framework and the railway order application represents a significant milestone in the delivery of the project. Metro West will link the large towns and districts in west Dublin such as Tallaght, Clondalkin, Liffey Valley and Blanchardstown. With linked services between Metro North and Metro West it will also connect these towns with Swords, the city centre and all other locations along the route of Metro North.

Metro West will integrate with the wider transport network with interchanges with Luas, Irish Rail, Metro North, bus and QBCs, taxis and Park & Ride along the route. The integration that Metro West will greatly improve connections within the entire public transport system.

The railway order application is the culmination of a number of years of planning, consultation, assessment and design work. The railway order includes plans and drawings of all the scheme infrastructure, legal documentation and an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the scheme. These documents will be on display at the offices of South Dublin and Fingal County Council, Railway Procurement Agency and An Bord Pleanála from the 29th of October 2010 and also available to view and download fromwww.dublinmetrowest.ie from the same date.

Metro West will deliver substantial benefits to communities in west Dublin, providing a quality public transport system, employment opportunities during the construction and operation phases, regeneration potential and environmental improvement. Overall Metro West will enhance the quality of life for those who live, work and visit the area.

Click here to view or download Metro West Railway Order Application Newspaper Notice

Click here to view or download Metro Metro West Railway Order Application Newspaper Notice Press Release

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FRANK McDONALD

Children had a key input into plans revealed yesterday for the new hospital to be built on the Mater site

DUBLIN HAS never seen anything like the national children’s hospital planned for the Mater site. Not only would it be taller than Liberty Hall, but the crowning eight-storey element would also be twice as long horizontally as Siptu’s headquarters is high.

The 16-storey hospital, designed by Dublin-based architects O’Connell Mahon in collaboration with global architects NBBJ, with earlier input from architects Murray O’Laoire, would rise to an overall height of nearly 68m (223ft), starting with a four-storey frontage on Eccles Street, with a wide entrance topped by a glazed canopy.

Behind this relatively modest stone-clad block, which is intended to repair the long gash in the streetscape caused by the demolition nearly 30 years ago of Scoil Caitríona and the Dominican College, a much larger eight-storey block would extend across the six-acre site.

The architects stack the children’s wards, with outdoor spaces for recreation, in a curvilinear form that would be visible all over the city. Its shape is unusual and highly distinctive – think the insole of a shoe, except more symmetrical – and clad in glass with profiled metal “fins”.

With a helicopter pad on the roof and the top floor given over to education, lead architect Seán Mahon says the wards “will be almost a piece of magic sitting on top” of the new hospital. The design, he says, is emblematic of “the whole idea of making special places for children”.

The architects thought long and hard about what form the wards should take and “gradually moved to a more fluid building rather than something static” and rectilinear. Indeed, what they have produced is almost playful, as befits its primary purpose and youthful clientele.

The scale is massive by Dublin standards, with the curving ward block extending to 120m long and up to 40m deep

Within it, the form allows for wards to be arranged in a saw-toothed layout, each with 24 individual bedrooms in clusters of eight around the nurses’ stations.

It would also be “inhabited”, as Mr Mahon says, by children’s play areas, family spaces and school areas, cantilevered out over a narrower “neck” separating the wards from the clinical floors below, with “playful or green elements and transient spaces to give it sense of life”.

Project architect Clare White, who worked on the project with Murray O’Laoire before the firm went into liquidation last March, says there was extensive engagement with a youth advisory panel, made up of children and teenagers aged from eight to 18, in designing the hospital.

Aided by facilitators, the children – all of whom had experience of being in hospital – wanted “everything to be soft, with colour everywhere”, she says. “They came up with a lot of practical issues, such as having a place downstairs where mums could get their hair done.”

Teenagers wanted full-length mirrors and the ability to “personalise their spaces”, as well as doors with different shapes to avoid monotony, while children wanted “slides instead of stairs, somewhere for pets, a cinema in the basement and football pitch on the roof”.

They didn’t get everything. Nevertheless, the input they had fed into the layout of rooms and their need for greenery and social spaces to meet other patients – especially important to teenagers – was taken on board.

All rooms have “pull-down beds” so that a parent could sleep comfortably there.

“We saw landscaping and gardens as really important in helping patient outcomes, and the image we developed at start was of overlapping roof spaces”, Seán Mahon says. “Hospitals also need good circulation and ‘way-finding’ systems, as they can be very tortuous.”

Most of the circulation in the national children’s hospital would be vertical (via lifts) rather than horizontal (long corridors). This is due to the restricted nature of the Eccles Street site, part of which would be for a maternity hospital, but it’s also best practice internationally.

All of the operating theatres and other clinical facilities would be at the lower levels, with the accident and emergency unit on the ground floor. Car parking would occupy four storeys underground, with 1,000 spaces – two-thirds for the public and the rest for medical staff.

One of the other key considerations was to remake Eccles Street, repairing the gash of nearly 100m between the Mater Private Hospital and a protected terrace next to the original hospital. The new hospital would extend much further, with an overall length of 200m.

However, 40m of the new street frontage would be taken up by the dramatic entrance under a broad canopy at parapet level. “We felt that its identification as a public building would be lost if it was too narrow, and a balance was needed to make this new public space, ” says Séan Mahon.

Underneath the canopy, a painted steel sculpture is proposed, as well as a freestanding cafe building in a form Finnish architect Alvaar Alto would have recognised; its blobby triangle is similar in shape to a famous glass vase he designed. Here again, fluidity was intended.

The height of the overall building and its impact on Dublin’s skyline is bound to be controversial. And while the architects insist that they haven’t “shoehorned” it into an inherently unsuitable site, had it been a tower block – rather than a slab – it would have risen to 21 storeys.

IrishTimes

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2. Children’s Hospital to open in 2014
3. [FI] Plans lodged for longawaited swimming pool (Balbriggan)

AN BORD Pleanála has scuppered plans for the development of a historic demesne near Celbridge, Co Kildare, on the basis that it would compromise the setting of Castletown House – now maintained by the Office of Public Works (OPW).

Overturning a decision by Kildare County Council to approve plans by developers Devondale Ltd for 108 detached houses at Donaghcumper Demesne, the board said it “would seriously injure the amenities of the area and of property in the vicinity”.

In its ruling, the board noted that both Donaghcumper House and Castletown are protected structures and that it is an objective of the Kildare county plan to prohibit development in gardens or landscapes associated with such structures.

The proposed development “would negatively impact on this designed landscape and would materially and adversely affect the character and setting of Castletown House, a protected structure of international importance, and Donaghcumper House itself”.

Notwithstanding the residential zoning of Donaghcumper Demesne, the board said the nature and scale of the proposed housing and the loss of parkland would contravene the Kildare county plan, “contrary to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area”.

“It is considered that the proposed development, by reason of its scale and location, would result in an excessive degree of encroachment into the River Liffey valley lands, which . . . are significant in terms of landscape character and of high amenity value.” It was also not satisfied, on the basis of information suggesting the presence of bats and otters on the site – both protected species under the EU habitats directive – that the development would not have an adverse impact on the ecology of Donaghcumper.

Devondale is also seeking to develop lands to the west of Donaghcumper House for a mixed-use scheme comprising an urban expansion of Celbridge, including 648 residential units and commercial/retail floor-space of circa 47,304sq metres.

Jeanne Meldon, planning consultant for the Save Celbridge Alliance, yesterday hailed An Bord Pleanála’s decision as “highly significant” because it set a “clear precedent” for protection of the wider setting of the historic landscape of Castletown House.

It also set a precedent for the protection of Donaghcumper and the Liffey Valley. “They refused permission on the best possible grounds – the principle of prohibiting development in landscapes deemed to be an important part of the setting of a protected structure.”

The Save Celbridge Alliance has also appealed against Kildare County Council’s plan for a new road network intended to facilitate the development of Donaghcumper Demesne, claiming that this would also compromise the setting of Castletown House.

The proposed road network would include a bridge over the Liffey within sight of Castletown’s gates. Among those who objected were the Department of the Environment, the OPW, the Castletown Foundation and An Taisce.

IrishTimes – Frank McDonald

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3. Sean Dunne gets green light to rebuild Hume House