Derelict Sites Act & Buildings At Risk

It would be interesting to expand on that to note which of those sites had potential developments objected to, and ultimately scuppered, by An Taisce

Maybe… but what would you like included:

AT objected to development on this site that would have meant the retention and refurbishment of the historic building (say its a protected structure) and additional new development designed harmoniously with its context

AT objected to the demolition of the existing historic building on the site and the construction of new development

AT objected to alterations to the existing historic building that were unsympathetic or detrimental to its character…say uPVC windows.

AT objected to the refurbishment and conservation of the existing protected structure and its return to a compatible use.

In fairness anything that higlights the levels of dereliction has to be welcomed.

@wearnicehats wrote:

It would be interesting to expand on that to note which of those sites had potential developments objected to, and ultimately scuppered, by An Taisce

A list of the bank-loan, overdeveloped Tiger horrors An Taisce helped to stop can be opened from this page – http://www.antaisce.ie/Press/AnTaisceRelatedNewsReleases/tabid/1024/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/226/Why-we-called-for-the-Investigation-of-Dublin-City-Councils-Planning-Record-An-Taisce.aspx

How to Build a Better Dublin

Reading the interview with John Tierney [the City Manager] you get the impression that the only plan the Corpo have is to wait for the next boom. I don’t see any evidence of a new analysis, or even any evidence of some in-depth reflection, instead it all seems to be shrug-of-the-shoulder stuff and some old guff about the Tall Buildings Strategy getting misunderstood in a ‘media storm’.

During the boom, the Corpo became a branch of the construction industry and with the construction industry now dormant, the Corpo seem to be taking the opportunity for some down time.

The planners who ditched their own Development Plan to accommodate Sean Dunne’s glittering mirage are still there and I bet they still believe in Richard Florida and the vision of a shiny anonymous city powered by its own creativity and freed from any backward looking attachment to its own distinctiveness.

Nothing has changed, there is no new thinking, when property prices start to pick up again, these guys are going to start making all the same mistakes again.

Its all guff. The Manager is ineffective and devoid of any ambition for the city. He’s not even from the bloody city! More interested in Limerick or Tipp or wherever he is from. The whole City Manager concept is so flawed – it has to change.

However the senior planning team aren’t up to much either. Where are the big ideas to move us on from here. Where are the strategies, the re-evaluation of the current frameworks/guidelines to reflect the situation the city is in?

The Reinventing Dublin series is a good idea…but I am disappointed by it already. Just Frank McD rehashing grievances about what went wrong in the boom. What about serious analysis of some of the many good ideas out there that will get this city out of its current morass. The poor analysis of housing today is a case in point.

Its a shame there arent currently more people on this forum to pitch in and expand the ‘re-inventing dublin’ discussion. As an emigré of dublin descent, its heartening to see such interest from the mainstream media in the future of dublin…but its a forum like this where ideas can potentially grow …and its always a pleasure to read the comments of such erudite and passionate posters!

Well for anyone left in Dublin :eh: this might be of interest

http://www.igs.ie/getdoc/4d857ec4-b7ee-4403-9c3d-4b80fc2e3041/Picking-up-the-Pieces—Conservation-and-Planning.aspx

Reinventing Dublin Part II

This is bordering on false advertising at this stage, like one of those 1950s movies with the word Naked in the title.

Frank’s piece has all the depth of a conversation you’d have with a stranger in a lift, except the stranger is Paul Keogh and the conversation is the same conversation we’ve heard over and over again; ‘And I’m not talking about high-rise [said the man who designed an apartment tower in Heuston high enough to see the tigers in the zoo in the Phoenix Park], buildings on the scale of Georgian Dublin would be adequate to meet all development criteria.’

On the abandoned plans to redevelop the reviled Corporation housing blocks in St. Michael’s Estate and elsewhere, the article just notes that these have been shelved, there’s no mention that the properties have been transferred out of the control of the various, broadly-based, Regeneration Boards and vested instead in the Corpo’s new EDU [the economic Development Unit] headed up by Kieran Rose, a guy who you could kill stone dead if you got up close to him and said the word –heritage – in his ear.

‘What to do with an unfinished urban estate?’ is a gentle piece by Olivia Kelly, in conversation with Merritt Bucholz, dealing with the mixed use, sustainable, eco-ghost estate called Elm Park he designed on a site on the Merrion Road that some astute nuns sold in 2001 for 36 million quid. Bucholz, now professor of architecture in Limerick University, isn’t losing any sleep over it, this is a victimless crime; ‘A building has no idea what it is.’ explains Bucholz. The bigger problem is that the building has no idea where it is. This is a scheme of urban scale and urban density, but it is located in suburbia, three or four miles from the CBD, or the Docklands extension to it. Had it been located in the central business district, it could have done some good. Out here, empty or full, it can only do harm.

The planning office that was responsible for Elm Park is as unrepentant as Bucholz as far as I can see and this article lets them off the hook.

Oh dear…have to agree Gunter Grouch. And you wont be much pleased with today’s musings on Transport either.

I cant believe the lack of editorial planning to this series. Why am I only hearing Frank’s gripes …what about all those thinkers, social innovators, campaigners, community activists and general moaners (like myself) out there who would love to offer some new insights into Dublin life, or who could do with a boost in their battle against official indifference and inertia.

Reinventing Dublin Part III

Transport today and nothing much being said. What about…

…this madcap idea to effect Metro North http://thehelpfulengineer.com/index.php/2012/09/an…

I’m also curious about how people move about city centre:
– proposals for Dublin2Walk about the Grafton Street area – stymied by City Roads Dept,
– what about wider pedestrian crossings (say 4m) that would give greater sense of pedestrian priority in city centre,
– what about a proper signage strategy in city that simplifies and improves current mess,
– when will Dublinbikes extensions start?…DCC says by end of year…that’s 6 weeks away!
– what about the Govt’s Roads Design Manual that is supposed to deliver more enlightened thinking on public realm than the current Road Engineer-dominated traffic departments have previously given. This was started by Ciaran Cuffe in 2010…two years to write a bloody manual!
– what about all that constant claptrap about ‘looking at providing contra-flow cycle lanes’…sort it out lads

If you are still there in Dublin and fancy some stimulation and debate…you’ll get more enlightenment from taking part in this http://cityintersections.wordpress.com./ (although you will continue to be ignored by the City council 🙂 )

And so the Reinventing Dublin series drew to a close today with some more snippets and tweet sized pearls of wisdom from a selection of the usual suspects:

Michelle Fagan, from her lofty perch as President of the RIAI, would like Dublin to become a carbon neutral city: ‘. . . in a world where diamonds are more valued than water . . .’ which sounds like our world. Fagan continues, as if struck by a vision while tossing a giant inflatable globe, Charlie Chaplin style; ‘We can have buildings that are capable of creating energy’ she proclaims . . . power stations I think they’re called.

Alan Mee, the top floor planning consultant, doesn’t mess about with allegories, he gives it to us straight; ‘Don’t expect anyone to do anything for you in the next 10 years.’

For Mark Turpin, an architect; ‘The greatest untapped potential is how to go from O’Connell Street to the seafront’ Turpin seems to be unfamiliar with the solution to this conundrum; the no. 1 bus.

Yvonne Farrell of Grafton Architects returns to Mee’s gloomy theme; ‘Let’s say there was no building at all over the next few years’ and then goes on to look on the bright side of that bleak future which includes – bicycles, Open-House weekend, and not much else.

Overall, I think the series has been well intentioned but a grievously disappointing; Dublin not so much reinvented, as re-heated.

Wednesday’s offering was probably the pick of the lot with young Hickey of the Civic Trust frog marching mild mannered Olivia Kelly around the North Georgian Core pointing out one appalling crime against our civic heritage after another.

Elsewhere, Fintan O’Toole was desperate to drive a stake into the northside-southside myth while simultaneously channelling bolts of electricity into a cobbled together eastside-westside creature that seemingly relies on a dodgy demographic map that appears to show the entire wasteland of Dublin Port and the bird sanctuary of Bull Island as havens of full employment.

There was also some good stuff each day from Frank McDonald who, even at half speed, is always well worth reading. Perhaps the biggest disappointment was the scarcity of new ideas and the reluctance to hold anyone in Dublin City council to account for their shockingly poor planning record on important schemes [witness; the Bord Pleanala Liberty Hall decision today] and their failure to adequately protect the city’s built heritage or grasp its potential to be one of the drivers in Dublin’s quest to become more than just a city of scribblers and drinkers.