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What’s the story like? 1/2012

Colin Broderick — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 09:30:17 +0000

It’s a new year, its a new dawn and all that stuff and i need a job! Hello 2012, may you be a good one! Well kicked off the year with my first ever web application competition entry for the #Apps4Fingal competition. You may have see my entry, it’s UrbanRural and i’m going to give it a shameless plug below again. I would really love to win the competition!

I would also advise you to check out all the other entries, some fantastic ideas providing food for thought in the ideas section and some great apps!

UrbanRural – Built on Heritage

Given that everyone seems to be mad into searching their family trees and establishing their personal histories, I figured why wouldn’t they be interested in their local area also. There’s a lot of built heritage out there that most people may never of known existed right in there back garden. UrbanRural aims to change that! I would be grateful if you could check out my entry and like it, spread the word, whatever!

The problem with Irish Planning is….

We don’t have enough documents like this one kindly retweeted by Dominic Byrne.

Very interesting paper on Participation in #SpatialPlanning (for both content & presentation) ow.ly/8sGDg via @rusty1052

— Dominic Byrne (@Dominic__Byrne) January 14, 2012

Open publication – Free publishing – More participation

My Dissertation is now available online

Open publication – Free publishing – More brt

For those of you interested in transport may want to have a read of my undergraduate dissertation which is now available online at issuu. Long story short, it looks at the barriers that one would come up against establishing orbital bus rapid transit routes in Dublin.

DT106ers is now on Google+

So plus one us!

Dublin Rail Transport – What it might be

Well the guys over at the Mental Planners have put together a nice map of what the complete NTA 2030 Vision transport strategy would look like if all the rail projects are all implemented. It’s an interesting idea. I have mashed up their map with the population growth maps of the NTA strategy and the result is below. Interesting to note that while the strategy fails in many respects it actually deals with the growth areas by proposing rail projects quite well.

Other Stuff

My Dublin Rapid Transport map final version will be available for printing soon! So watch this space.
The Irish Planning Institute is on twitter, Follow them @IrishPlanInst
I’m planning on setting up some planning podcasts, if anyone is interested in being part of that, get in touch with me!
Since their is bugger all planning work out there, we may aswell start our own businesses. That’s what the Dublin StartUp weekend is for! Build a business in 54 hours, more at – dublin.startupweekend.org

Keep in touch

Get your daily dose of me through my twitter @Rusty1052, your daily Irish Planning News courtesy the paper.li aggregator.

Not down with any of these new things? Or maybe you would like to offer me a job or use my services? Well sure just drop me an email at colinb@dt106ers.com. Will be great to hear from you! (Whoever you maybe).

Peace out planners!

Open Data – Ever wondered where all the applications are?

Colin Broderick — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 17:44:16 +0000

I’m quiet a big fan of all the nice open data initiatives that are ongoing throughout our country and i’m really impressed with the much larger effort in the uk.

When the Fingal Open Data Hub appeared on the map i thought sweet, i can go do something with their data but I really wasn’t sure at all, until now! Below are all planning applications in Fingal for the last 7 years. Thanks to the power of Google Refine and Fusion Tables its now easier than ever to produce a map.

Little markers on the map is cool and all but you can also make heat maps! Unfortunately this is a rather limited feature in that you have to be zoomed out quiet far for it to work. When you zoom in the red hot spots never appear. See for yourself:

This map has been filtered just to show those that have been decided and to discount those that were either invalid or withdrawn.

Unsuprisingly the areas with the highest concentration of applications are in the main residential areas of Swords, Blanchardstown and the Malahide/Howth area. It would be nice to be able to show only those applications that were granted outline permission or just were granted.

What Next?

Well I have since discovered that if you go over to the Dublinked website the planning application register for the 5 Dublin county councils, although some are for members only. This is fantastic and I can’t wait to get stuck into that data to try and produce a dublin area map showing where the applications all were from year to year.

Unfortunately I hit a snag in that the Dublin City data is badly put together in that the data file is in a comma seperated format but for some reason in the description and the address fields there are commas which are not escaped therefore breaking the data structure when you import. I’ve emailed the lovely people in Maynooth about the problem, I’ve yet to receive a response.

[UPDATE] The Fingal Planning Application data from DubLinked has the decisions, the agents plus much more! Its taking a bit of time to get the details into fusion tables so I can map it fairly easily so stay tuned for an update.

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

Bag’o Links “Independence Day”, Chinese ghost estates and more…

Colin Broderick — Sun, 03 Jul 2011 23:19:14 +0000

Well folks since it will be independence day by the time I publish this post Happy America day folks and for those in Canada belated Canada Day! That crap aside down to business, been some great links this week!

Chinese ghost estates (cough) CITIES!

Interesting piece by those plucky Aussies on dateline down under – Watch Chinas Ghost Cities.Watch as they tour cities designed for 12 million people which are 85% vacant. Boggles the mind!

News just in, An Taisce hates planners!

While they also hate the laws in which we operate in, councilors and county managers they label planners as “spineless” in the face of bad zonings. Read On.

Fingal talk to NIRSA summer school of urban walkability study

Fingal planners were on hand at the National Institute of Regional Spatial Research’s summer school to explain there study of walkability in the Blanchardstown area, a residential area i know only too well characterized by a huge shopping centre and loads of fences to stop you walking to the bus 50m’s away. Read On.

Preliminary Census Results are out!

Results from the 2011 census of Ireland have been published, check out the published CSO Report [PDF] or check out the data. There have been a number good posts from various blogs who were pretty fast off the mark. One very good one by Rob Kitchin over on Ireland After NAMA with commentary on the vacancy rates. Most eye catching stat for me though is , there are way more women than men in the state, well except for the midlands.

Don’t forget!

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!

Toodles!

Fingal – First draft of Plan due next March

Colin Broderick — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:50:40 +0000

FINGAL’S new County Development Plan must be agreed by April 2011 with the first draft expected to go on public display next March.

Councillors met last week to begin the next phase of the preparation of the Plan following on from the initial round of public consultation during the summer.

Public representatives play an important role at this stage as they provide policy direction to the manager in drawing up the new Plan, which will set out the local authority’s principle objectives from 2011 to 2017.

The next key dates are January, February and early March next year when councillors will meet to consider the Manager’s draft, which will then go on public display.

Submissions will then be made from the public and councillors will meet to consider making amendments to the plan. County Manager David O’Connor said some 553 submissions were received from the public in the initial round of consultation, down from over 1,000 from the previous plan. Almost one in five submissions related to transportation issues, followed by concerns about community, recreation and open space. Mr O’Connor has made four general recommendations in relation to the Plan covering the promotion of sustainable development, minimising climate change, contributing to social inclusion and integrating high quality design to its work.

It is the aim of the council to realise the long-term Swords Strategic vision and to consolidate the growth of Balbriggan and Blanchardstown.

It is also the manager’s aim to consolidate growth and protect the identity of the other town’s around the region, as well as safeguarding the development of Dublin Airport. Mr O’Connor said it was estimated that the population was now tipping the quarter of a million mark.

Source: Fingal-Independent

Before the end of the week i hope to have a post written on the development plan process for those who are unsure how it works and also the time limits involved in the action of preparing a new development plan.

Local area plan to be completed

Colin Broderick — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:35:03 +0000

A LONG-awaited local area plan for Rivermeade in St Margaret’s will be completed by the middle of next year, according to Fingal County Council.

Cllr Tom Kelleher (Lab) put a motion to a meeting of the Balbriggan/Swords Area Committee last week asking for an update on the RV1 or rural village plan. The council’s planning department said that a number of issues identified in December of last year have delayed the plan.

Some of those issues relate to the need to examine the ecological impacts of development in the area on the Broadmeadows Estuary through the river Ward which traverses Rivermeade.

The limited capacity

of Swords Wastewater Treatment Plant which services the area is also an issue and the possibility of increasing flooding of the Ward River.

The location of the proposed Swords Western Ring Road also had to be looked at as part of the plan.

The council says to progress the local area plan for Rivermeade fully, the results of the Fingal East Meath Flood Risk Assessment Management Study FRAM), is required.

Interim results from the study have been delayed, but are now due in November 2009.

The planning department hope that, pending those results and of its own ‘appropriate assessment’ of the risk to Broadmeadows Estuary, the plan will be completed by early to mid 2010.

Source: Fingal Independent