Re: Re: DDDA / Docklands Miscellany
@gunter wrote:
No mystery PVC, I raised the issue because the I.T. article [posted above] brought it up today . . . . and used the Duke-of-Ormond factor that should have killed it stone dead three years ago.
Why this thread?
. . . I couldn’t find the other thread.
@gunter wrote:
Maybe you’re right, maybe this was never going anywhere, but it didn’t feel like that at the time. At the time, nothing seemed to be capable of wounding, let alone killing, this scheme, it just seemed to gain acceptance with every new document that issued from the DDDA. I recall being at a presentation in Bolton Street where Dick Gleeson of all people included slides of the ”Liffey Island” scheme as part of future Dublin and gave no indication of being remotely uncomfortable with it.
My point is: if this scheme was all as damaging and ludicrous as Frank McDonald today said it was [ – and it was – ], why weren’t people in the wider architectural, planning and civic community saying this at the time?
One possibility is that there isn’t actually a wider, architectural, planning and civic community, . . . . . or at least one that gives a toss 😡
You can just write that phase off in terms of looking for logic; there were so many proposals coming through at that stage that all anyone in heritage could do was fire fight; money was being thrown around by government like it was going out of fashion so if you wanted your pet project to be funded then don’t criticise other people’s; the concept of scarce resources was reserved only for outcasts!!!.
The real unwitting hero was of course the Fabulous Fab who managed to collapse the real estate bubble or possibly his masters at Paulson. There is a lot I will miss about tiger Ireland but looking at proposals to destroy the river that defines the city is certainly not one of them.
Its very easy to focus on the negative but as the country is clearly now starting to look towards the future after a horrific spell. The real question is how does the City replace or shackle the DDDA to ensure that it becomes much more like the CHDDA vs the plaything of a number of non-exec directors who went so far beyond their remit that it became damaging. The development of the docklands as an exemplar of sustainable high desity higher quality commercial and residential space is more important than it ever was in light of the impending arrival of interconnector in a short period of time.
