Re: Re: Macken St Bridge – Santiago Calatrava

@jdivision wrote:

http://www.tribune.ie/business/news/article/2009/dec/06/sitting-on-the-dock-of-the-bay/
One source said he believed that development levies paid towards the (linear) park had been ringfenced for that purpose but the authority’s view is different. “The board of the authority is currently reviewing options for the linear park which may include scaling back plans given our current financial situation. Income to the authority in the form of levies is not earmarked for specific project use but is allocated across all area and social regeneration projects,” a spokesman said last week.

As a student in a group arranged by our lecturer we attended the Smithfield Oral Hearing and the one point I remember from that hearing was the frustration expressed by Tom Phillips then at Frank L Benson as to the practice of a local authority maximising developer contributions for ‘specific works’ which would enhance the specific local environment to a very attractive one benefiting borh the development and local residents alike. Then once the consent was secured and development levies discharged often into the millions the same local authority would overrule their planners with the same ‘specific funds’ to disapear into the ‘general budget’.

If Dublin is to go down the FDR route of public amenity infrastructure as a fiscal stimulus that is one thing but to leave the North Docklands with anything other than the best possible master plan in the context of the scale of the NAMA ownerships down there and the requirement to develop the area to ensure viability for the Dart Underground scheme would be incredibly retrograde. I am very dispointed to read this article as one would have expected a lot more lucidity from someone with the intellect of Niamh Brennan.