An Irish Planning Students Blog

DEVELOPERS ARE facing severe restrictions on the construction of high-rise buildings in Dublin city following the introduction of the new Dublin City Development Plan next year.

City councillors last night agreed to ban the construction of buildings above 28m (92ft) – about half the height of Liberty Hall – unless a statutory plan called a Local Area Plan (Lap) was drafted for the area in question. Such a plan could take several years to develop.

This would block the construction of any further high-rise or even medium-rise buildings in areas previously earmarked by the council for tall buildings such as the Docklands, Heuston and Connolly stations and George’s Quay.

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WATER SUPPLY in the greater Dublin area is on a knife-edge, with demand likely to outstrip available reserves within a few years, according to a report prepared by consultants for seven local authorities.

The capital has no strategic reserves of water when it should have 10-20 per cent reserves at a minimum, while existing sources are operating near sustainable limits, the report by consultants RPS-Veolia JV states.

Dublin city councillors this week approved the consultants’ main proposal to bring excess water from the basin of the Shannon river to meet needs in the east and midlands.

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I’m not entirely convinced of the merits of doing this, but there is one thing for certain the EIS attached to this application will be one mammoth document. Surely fixing all the leaky old pipes in the city could buy some more time so that a solution closer to the city could be formulated. We shall have to wait and see.

DUBLIN CITY Council is to seek approval next week for a plan to pump 350 million litres of water per day from the river Shannon to serve the capital’s drinking water needs for the next 70 years.

Councillors will be asked by the city manager to endorse the scheme, – which will cost about €500 million – and are expected to do so, before seeking Government approval and permission from An Bord Pleanála. However, it does not require the permission of any local authority in the Shannon region.

The proposal was one of several options put forward in a 2006 report commissioned by the council from consultant engineers RPS to meet the Dublin region’s ever-growing demands for water.

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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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Don’t Forget to get your submissions in before the 12th March. Need a Planner try The Irish Planning Institute Planner Search

NO NEW lands will be rezoned for housing in Dublin city until after 2017, under the new draft city development plan which has been released for public consultation.

Assistant city manager Michael Stubbs said there was already sufficient residentially zoned land to meet demand and that some land which had been zoned residential under the last development plan would be rezoned for other uses.

Undeveloped land which had been zoned solely for housing is now being considered for a newly created zoning “Z10A”. This zoning would be similar to the existing Z10 zoning which allows for mixed use development of residential, commercial and retail in urban centres, but would have lower densities.

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The new Draft Dublin City Development Plan 2011 – 2017 is officially on display now, with public consultation open. Written submissions will can be made up until 4:40PM on Friday, 12^thMarch 2010. All submissions or observations received during the above time period will be taken into consideration before the making of the Dublin City Development Plan 2011-2017.

The development plan has its own website which can be viewed at the following link: http://www.dublincitydevelopmentplan.ie

It is quiet interesting to note that on the website the council have prepared a number of videos detailing there key vision for the city. The authority have taken a different tack to completing the this development plan, a vision for 2030 has identified the steps it feels necessary to achieve this 2030 vision.

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MINISTER FOR the Environment John Gormley will express his “dismay” at a Cabinet meeting next week over remarks by Dublin city manager John Tierney on the controversial Poolbeg incinerator project.

Mr Tierney last week said the Minister “must be aware” that Dublin City Council had a statutory obligation to go ahead with the incinerator and that interference with the project could leave the State with a multimillion-euro compensation bill.

The incinerator site is in Mr Gormley’s own constituency of Dublin South East. As an opposition TD, he made a submission to An Bord Pleanála against the application for permission to build the facility. However, on becoming Minister, he was legally precluded from interfering in a statutory process that had already begun.

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Fine Gael has called on Dublin City Council to prevent the commencement of construction work on the Poolbeg incinerator over alleged non-compliance with the planning procedure.

Late last month, an announcement was made by the council that it would start construction of the 600,000 tonne incinerator within weeks, a move then described by Minister for the Environment John Gormley as “most unwise” and “foolhardy”.
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A ROAD safety and traffic management measure that would have meant hundreds of large lorries removed from Dublin city streets daily has been set aside because the city council has no budget for the plan.

Despite the success of a heavy goods vehicle (HGV) ban introduced following the opening of the Dublin Port Tunnel, the council said it does not intend to go ahead with its planned extension to four-axle vehicles at present. It said the extension would cost €3 million over the next five years.

The Road Safety Authority (RSA) last night said it was disappointed by the decision.

The HGV management strategy introduced in February 2007 banned lorries of five axles or more from the city streets between 7am and 7pm. The measure was to have been extended to four-axle lorries this year.

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The Irish Waste Management Association (IWMA) today claimed the proposed Poolbeg incinerator was “grossly oversized” relative to waste needs and called for an urgent review of the project.

The IWMA was releasing the findings of an independent report on the facility it commissioned.

“The report firmly establishes that the facility is grossly oversized and goes on to clearly demonstrate that a facility with a capacity of 250,000 to 300,000 tonnes per annum would be more than adequate to meet Dublin’s requirements until at least 2037 for residual waste management,” a statement from the IWMA said.

The proposed Dublin City Council (DCC) incinerator, in which Covanta and Dong Energy are commercial partners, would be one of the largest such facilities in Europe having an annual capacity to treat almost 600,000 tonnes of waste for a population of approximately one million people, the IWMA said.

“Given that we produce on average 750kg of waste per head per annum this means that DCC and Covanta/Dong Energy will have to burn almost 80 per cent of our waste arising in Dublin to fill the plant, something that no other developed society does.”

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