Gormley initiates planning review

Credit where it’s due, well done to John Gormley for having the balls to officially ask the questions the dogs in the street were asking for the past 6-7 years.

In my opinion there were some truly shocking planning decisions passed in Cork over the past decade. Eight months on from last year’s floods, The Irish Examiner ran a two page article yesterday on the floods and the legacy that remains. One legacy was the 5 star Kingsley Hotel that is still shut down after receiving planning permission to build 10 feet from the river Lee.

Hopefully somebody will end up in prison if planning ‘flaws’ are discovered.

Just wondering if Dick Roche was still Minister for Environment would the tough questions be asked?

how come they can come up with a detailed response on “how existing planning legislation, Government policy and guidelines are being implemented and to determine whether local authorities are acting in a consistent and transparent manner, and whether they have the correct powers and tools to deliver on their responsibilities” in 4 weeks when it takes them 8 weeks to make a decision on a poxy little house extension

It wouldn’t matter if Gormley gave them them four months, they’re never going to come out with their hands up and say; yes your complainants are quite right, we were cavalier in our planning decisions, we lost the plot, send us our P45s.

The press release says that this review won’t get into analyzing any individual planning decisions, no matter how incomprehensible, yet Gormley made it clear in the radio interview that it is precisely representations on individual planning decisions [representations primarily by An Taisce he seemed to indicate] that has sparked this action, so it’s difficult to see how the accused local authorities can avoid having to answer for their actions on some individual cases at least.

One possible structural change in the planning process that could result from this review would be the creation of a final layer of over-sight just before the decision issues that tests whether the intended decision actually conforms to any of the high minded aspirations in the Development Plan, just that issue alone, this would reinforce the status of the ‘Development Plan’ as the primary planning instrument, and ‘Development Plans’, by and large, are quite good.

I can think of at least half a dozen decisions on high profile planning applications that would not have got past that hurdle if it had been there and not obscured by all the hyperbolé that arrives in crates nowadays when a serious planning application is lodged.

@gunter wrote:

.

One possible structural change in the planning process that could result from this review would be the creation of a final layer of over-sight just before the decision issues that tests whether the intended decision actually conforms to any of the high minded aspirations in the Development Plan, .

I’d be for that if it could be structured in to a system that abolishes ABP. Otherwise, just a layer that leads to yet another delay in the inevitable

Hear, hear. ABP is an absolute f*in disgrace. Inconsistent, subject to govt. (read FF) pressure, a despotic planning regime which suspiciously overrules its own well trained inspectors regularly.

What’s the point in investigating bad LA decisions when ABP is the ultimate culprit. If Gormley wants to do more than pay lip service to proper planning and really reform the planning quagmire of this country, then he needs to reform both LAs & ABP, so that they observe all development plans unless there are truly exceptional circumstances.

THE REVIEW of planning in Meath ordered by Minister for the Environment John Gormley is to focus solely on the southern Drogheda local area plan which was adopted by Meath County Council last year.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0628/1224273466956.html

Why solely on Drogheda?? I would have thought Meath could have provided enough material for years??

@luap_42 wrote:

What’s the point in investigating bad LA decisions when ABP is the ultimate culprit.

I have to disagree; in the main ABP gets it spot on; there have been a few decisions I haven’t understood such as the Clarence Hotel but in the main they convert development plans and a very pro lax development standards government policy by which they are equally bound into a series of generally good decisions. The danger is that as the government passes more and more desperate measures to allow any development in an effort to stimulate construction employment that An Bord’s powers to stop poor planning will be hamstrung.

@PVC King wrote:

I have to disagree; in the main ABP gets it spot on; there have been a few decisions I haven’t understood such as the Clarence Hotel but in the main they convert development plans and a very pro lax development standards government policy by which they are equally bound into a series of generally good decisions. The danger is that as the government passes more and more desperate measures to allow any development in an effort to stimulate construction employment that An Bord’s powers to stop poor planning will be hamstrung.

as someone who has the misfortune to have to be dictated to by ABP within this ludicrous planning system I am absolutely astounded by that comment. The very fact that ABP exist breeds lax planning decisions because it’s an easy road for the LA. ABP are an organisation who are kicked into action by the agendas of others – an organisation (can you have a disorganised organisation?) with an invisible elite who systematically overrule those below them who are supposedly more qualified to judge than they, an organisation who consistently fail to “judge” on decisions within the timescale stipulated in their mandate; an organisation that has absolutely no respect, trust or faith from the professions it lauds over; an organisation that exists without the courtesy of discourse with those whose livelihoods lie before them and an organisation that is cataclysmically ill informed and ultimately a metaphor for the galloping bureaucracy holding this country to ransom every day

wearnicehats, I’ve a lot of time for what you have to say. But equally, you always state the same arguement that ABP should be abolished simply on the basis of how they administer their operations: namely with regard to timescales, first party consulation and a more flexible engagement with relevant professions. Broadly speaking these issues have to be agreed with, but they in no way warrant the abolition of an extremely worthwhile, independent (as you’re going to get) organisation, which by and large has promoted and defended standards which large swathes of the associated professions, including its own, have so dismally failed to uphold in this country over the past decade.

In fact, I would strongly argue that the trite proposed abolition of such a body is precisely the type of thinking that has got us into the mess we created for ourselves over the past number of years. In reality, we will never have truly professional planning in Ireland until such a time as the number of local planning authorities is slashed, small town councils are liquidated, and stringent regional planning guidelines are properly enforced. Only then will we have a critical mass of expertise and professionalism in local authorities – centres of excellence if you will – capable of making sound, principled decisions based on solid Development Plans. And only then will a body like ABP be able to take a back seat role in not having to do the work – and be criticised for doing the work – of local planning authorities. Does it need reform? – absolutely. Just don’t throw the baby out with the floodwater.

Wearnicehats just wants a return to the days of ministerial appeals, the days of Tully and Burke……

There was a phase when developers paid way over the odds for sites, architects didn’t get instructed unless they ignored development plans and local authority planners didn’t have time to examine plans properly. Starting an examination at second instance when in so many cases first instance examination has been less than thorough will always lead to delays as did the failure to properly resource the organisation when for example housing went from 40,000 units p.a. to 96,000 units p.a.

@PVC King wrote:

. . . . local authority planners didn’t have time to examine plans properly.

Don’t start making excuses for them. If anything they took too much time delving into the deeper recesses of their own Development Plans looking for phrases that could be used to justify granting permission for schemes that should have been dispatched with a simple REFUSE, – DOES NOT COMPLY.

I’d have no problem with them adding another page to the planning application form that requires a simple point-by-point statement by the architect of how the proposed scheme complies, or otherwise, with the key headings in the Development Plan. If on a number of key issues the scheme has to be stated that it does not comply, but we’re claiming instead ”exceptional circumstances” then it should be required that the planning application states that fact in bold print giving the planning officer no where to go other than to state [in a maximum of two sentences] whether the case for ”exceptional circumstanses” is proven or not. Not proven results in an invalidation, not a refusal, so the scheme never gets to waste everyone time in Bord Pleanala.

If there was a temptation for planning officers to grant ”exceptional circumstances” to schemes that didn’t merit it and in due course these schemes were refused by Bord Pleanala, then it’s goodbye charlie to the planner.

I dunno, maybe give them a quota of two mistakes a year, if we’re being generous.

Have to stick up for ABP . They get it right far, far more often than not. The inspectors reports are really well structured and reasoned over 90% of the time, The Board itself are more prone to gaffs but not by enough to talk of abolition or any wholescale restructuring of the organisation.

I built my major undergrad and masters research project work around ABP files as they are such a useful resource for the student and the practising planner.

At any given time I’d be involved in a couple of live appeals and whilst we haven’t always ‘won’ for a client I have only personally been involved with one absolute stinker of a decision in nearly four years.

As far as referees go I would have them up there with Pierluigi Colina rather than that Jorge Larrionda in the England game the other day!

@GrahamH wrote:

wearnicehats, I’ve a lot of time for what you have to say. But equally, you always state the same arguement that ABP should be abolished simply on the basis of how they administer their operations: namely with regard to timescales, first party consulation and a more flexible engagement with relevant professions. Broadly speaking these issues have to be agreed with, but they in no way warrant the abolition of an extremely worthwhile, independent (as you’re going to get) organisation, which by and large has promoted and defended standards which large swathes of the associated professions, including its own, have so dismally failed to uphold in this country over the past decade.

In fact, I would strongly argue that the trite proposed abolition of such a body is precisely the type of thinking that has got us into the mess we created for ourselves over the past number of years. In reality, we will never have truly professional planning in Ireland until such a time as the number of local planning authorities is slashed, small town councils are liquidated, and stringent regional planning guidelines are properly enforced. Only then will we have a critical mass of expertise and professionalism in local authorities – centres of excellence if you will – capable of making sound, principled decisions based on solid Development Plans. And only then will a body like ABP be able to take a back seat role in not having to do the work – and be criticised for doing the work – of local planning authorities. Does it need reform? – absolutely. Just don’t throw the baby out with the floodwater.

I did try to initiate a think tank sort of affair previously in this thread

https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=8069

Unfortunately no-one seemed particularly bothered

@wearnicehats wrote:

I did try to initiate a think tank sort of affair previously . . .

Unfortunately no-one seemed particularly bothered

Actually plenty of people were bothered, if you read back on that thread . . . . until you said:

@wearnicehats wrote:

Re: What to do about the SYSTEM?

---

”this is all becoming very prosaic and 5th year but is moving away from the immediate issue of how to streamline the system that we are stuck with”

Personally I’ve no interest in making the planning system faster, they can take twice as long as far as I’m concerned so long as they get the feckin decisions right.

@gunter wrote:

Actually plenty of people were bothered, if you read back on that thread . . . . until you said:

Personally I’ve no interest in making the planning system faster, they can take twice as long as far as I’m concerned so long as they get the feckin decisions right.

You obviously don’t run a business gunter – if you did you’d realise that budgeting and planning require a certain amount of certainty in terms of where you think you’ll be in 2-3 months time. The planning system breeds only uncertainty and has, undoubtedly, cost a great deal of people their jobs over the last 3 years. Not the civil servants themselves of course…. Can you imagine if the government brought through – without consultation – new penal laws under which an accused would be tried, off camera, by a jury of one person and in which a panel of judges could choose to accept the jury’s verdict or not. And the accused would have no opportunity to defend themselves. I doubt people would be happy

It’s actually pretty easy to comply with the development plan – simply because the plan is so vague. Whilst a checklist is a good idea per se it would be too subjective to be of any real use. This is where applicants need direction from LAs and where, in many cases, especially large projects, this direction is flawed. This direction also rarely forms part of the evidence put forward to ABP and so rarely results in any form of retribution towards the LA.

Ok – I’ll admit that the 5th year comment was probably trite but all I could see was a lot of talk about talk. All I could think of was Life of Brian (ha – how apt for the current government debacle):

Reg: Right! Now, item four: Attainment of world supremacy within the next five years. Ah, Francis, you’ve been doing some work on this?
Rogers: Yeah, thank you, Reg. Well, quite frankly, siblings, I think five years is optimistic, unless we can smash the Roman Empire within the next twelve months!
Reg: Twelve months?
Rogers: Yeah, twelve months. And let’s face it, as empires go, this is the big one. So we gotta get up of our arses and stop just talking about it!
All in PFJ: Yeah! Yeah! Hear!
Loretta: I agree! It’s action that counts, not words, and we need action now!
All in PFJ: Yeah! Yeah!
Reg: You’re right. We could sit around here all day, talking, passing resolutions, making clever speeches, it’s not to ship one Roman soldier!
Francis: So let’s just stop gabbing on about it! It’s completely pointless, and it’s getting us nowhere!
All: Right!
Loretta: I agree! This is a complete waste of time!

I agree with GrahamH that reform of the LAs is necessary but I also think that ABP needs reform too. I do think that, no matter how much reform is done at LA level, the safety net of ABP is always there and will always cloud any decision. I also agree that fundamental changes are required in the legislation but a cast iron copper bottomed development plan with no ambiguity will take years to agree but, that said, I don’t think from a creative design standpoint that such a thing would actually benefit the built environment.

That is not a reason, however, not to initiate reform to the system we have whilst the talkers are talking

@wearnicehats wrote:

It’s actually pretty easy to comply with the development plan – simply because the plan is so vague.

I do take your point, Development Plans can be hopelessly vague, by coincidence I was just reading a copy of the manager’s response to public submissions on the draft new DCC Development Plan last night, and there are worrying signs that the new DP may have the makings of a complete shambles.

The terminology is all over the place, with your ”Urban Quarters” and your ”Character Areas” overlapping with district centres and branded ”gateways”, there’s no clarity about what the actual primary objective is. Consolidating the compact city should be no. 1 and everything else a distant second, but although numerous submissions from individuals and organizations make that point, this gets lost in a sea of other objectives, many of which would seem to be contradictory.

Assuming that the Development Plan can be seriously tightened up and that in the final draft the primary objective is there in bold print, and that a series of secondary objectives can be clearly stated, I do think that a lot of the dodgy planning proposals for extra toppings on the doughnut [which are always at the expense of consolidating the centre] could be cut down at source, if there was simple over-sight on that one big issue: Does this scheme comply with, or conflict with, the primary objectives of the Development Plan?

On the length of time issue, I do run my own – I was going to say – business, but unfortunately very badly.

Having said that, if we’re involved in architecture, we’re in the posterity business and I’d sooner we left something decent to posterity, even if the process takes a bit longer, than have a system that delivers schemes rapidly, schemes that we may end up regretting for a very long time.

Dublin City Council have published their response to Gormley’s Enquiry on their website.

The report is quite defensive, even has a quite a surly tone at times.

They are quite trenchant in their criticism of An Taisce, obviously no love lost there!

@forrestreid wrote:

Dublin City Council have published their response to Gormley’s Enquiry on their website.

The report is quite defensive, even has a quite a surly tone at times.

They are quite trenchant in their criticism of An Taisce, obviously no love lost there!

:rolleyes:Cork City Council decided to make their ‘excuses’ in the Irish Examiner.

http://irishexaminer.com/ireland/nothing-to-fear-from-inquiry-city-council-told-125093.html

Cork City Council decided to make their ‘excuses’ in the Irish Examiner.

http://irishexaminer.com/ireland/not…ld-125093.html

Clearly a lot smarter to respond in the media than on the front page of your website

The Dublin City Council Response

The repitition of the line below or similar fluffy langauge to skirt around direct hits is not helpful; for example trying to justify the tower in Donnybrook on zoning grounds :eek:.

In relation to… it is acknowledged that there is a difference in opinion between Dublin City Council and the Board in the level of….

This was a wonderful opportunity for the DCC to fess up and put on the record that they were put under huge pressure during the bubble phase due to a lack of resources in the context of record construction and unprecedented re-applications for a second, third and forth bites of the cherry. Instead they have chosen to waffle on about every national/regional document none of which dealt with specific site treatment of buildings other than the height survey instead of simply saying in specific cases we got it wrong; as a percentage of cases it was small but we have learned our lesson and will not under this management team allow the same mistakes again.

@forrestreid wrote:

Dublin City Council have published their response to Gormley’s Enquiry on their website.

The report is quite defensive, even has a quite a surly tone at times.

They are quite trenchant in their criticism of An Taisce, obviously no love lost there!

the antagonism is paramount and certainly offers no hope of the planning process going forward in a spirit of co-operation and consultation to the mutual benefit of all.

Interesting point though in there that, of the 15 out of 23 ABP reversals of the DCC PP that AT adhere so closely to, 5 of these (33%) saw ABP overturn the recommendations of their own inspectors

At least DCC had the balls to put it up on their website rather than in the papers – CCC took the “today’s news is tomorrow’s chip wrappers” option so we’d all forget about it

According to your logic ABP got it right twice as often as they got it wrong; but we all know you don’t accept the current planning system structure of first instance local, second instance An Bord and third instance High Court etc.

After the JC Deceaux advertising fiasco and now a failure to fess up to their planning record under direct ministerial enquiry; you do wonder if DCC realise that they in fact at first instance level and subject to oversight. If I were John Gormley I would be having a conversation with the elected body of the City Council informing them of the loss of their powers should he be required to develove more power to the new mayoral office to remove certain functions due to a potential to acheive a better fit with national standards.

@PVC King wrote:

According to your logic ABP got it right twice as often as they got it wrong; but we all know you don’t accept the current planning system structure of first instance local, second instance An Bord and third instance High Court etc.

.

another way of looking at it is that, if the inspector was “right”, ABP agreed with DCC 13 times out of the 23. Lies, damned lies and statistics – you should know that PVC, you’re fond of your stats.

It’s all about opinions. Yours, mine, AT’s, the punter, LA’s, ABP’s, courts – I don’t agree with the structure because it breeds too many opinions

Interesting point though in there that, of the 15 out of 23 ABP reversals of the DCC PP that AT adhere so closely to, 5 of these (33%) saw ABP overturn the recommendations of their own inspectors

&

ABP agreed with DCC 13 times out of the 23.

Were those calculations done on an Abacus?

15 reversals are 15 reversals on major schemes as decided by a bord of the most emminent planners as appointed by Government; by granting planning permissions that were not professionally assessed to a standard capable of passing an Bord Pleannala they created a new layer of risk which meant that meant developers paid significantly higher financing costs due to the requirement to wait for the ABP decision and then spend months reapplying. If the decisions were bullet proof at first instance a lot more schemes would have been built prior to the music stopping…..

I would love to see a planning student do a thesis on the percentage of professional fees as a percentage of build costs on major schemes built in Dublin between 2004 and 2009; comparisons to London or Frankfurt would not be pretty.

@PVC King wrote:

&

Were those calculations done on an Abacus?

15 reversals are 15 reversals on major schemes as decided by a bord of the most emminent planners as appointed by Government; by granting planning permissions that were not professionally assessed to a standard capable of passing an Bord Pleannala they created a new layer of risk which meant that meant developers paid significantly higher financing costs due to the requirement to wait for the ABP decision and then spend months reapplying. If the decisions were bullet proof at first instance a lot more schemes would have been built prior to the music stopping…..

.

not sure what you mean here, although I note that you cut only a small section of my argument (a statistician’s move there!). 8 of the 23 DCC decisions were upheld by ABP. Of the other 15, 5 of the inspectors recommended upholding the decision – giving 13 upheld decisions if the inspectors were correct. By your logic above, the 5 of ABP’s own inspectors who recommended acceptance of DCC’s decision were equally as professionally incapable of assessing the schemes to a standard acceptable to ABP as DCC themselves – which kind of makes a mockery of the process don’t you think?

@PVC King wrote:

If I were John Gormley I would be having a conversation with the elected body of the City Council informing them of the loss of their powers should he be required to develove more power to the new mayoral office to remove certain functions due to a potential to acheive a better fit with national standards.

And why should that frighten them?

At the moment DCC is dominated by FG and Labour. The Councillors of those parties confidently assume that the new Mayor position will be held by either FG and Labour.

They would only be too delighted if Gormley increased the power of the Mayor – will make it easier to ignore the bleatings of the few FF and Green Councillors that are left in the Dublin Councils

@wearnicehats wrote:

not sure what you mean here, although I note that you cut only a small section of my argument (a statistician’s move there!). 8 of the 23 DCC decisions were upheld by ABP. Of the other 15, 5 of the inspectors recommended upholding the decision – giving 13 upheld decisions if the inspectors were correct. By your logic above, the 5 of ABP’s own inspectors who recommended acceptance of DCC’s decision were equally as professionally incapable of assessing the schemes to a standard acceptable to ABP as DCC themselves – which kind of makes a mockery of the process don’t you think?

You both know it’s never as straightforward as that. The upholding of a local authoity grant decision could be so heavily modified as to have manners put on it by the Board and may be equally as damning as a refusal.

our appeals process doesn’t lend itself to basic statistical analysis and shouldn’t be subjected to it in any informed debate.

Tommy as always on de money..

.

not sure what you mean here, although I note that you cut only a small section of my argument (a statistician’s move there!). 8 of the 23 DCC decisions were upheld by ABP. Of the other 15, 5 of the inspectors recommended upholding the decision – giving 13 upheld decisions if the inspectors were correct. By your logic above, the 5 of ABP’s own inspectors who recommended acceptance of DCC’s decision were equally as professionally incapable of assessing the schemes to a standard acceptable to ABP as DCC themselves – which kind of makes a mockery of the process don’t you think?

The bottom line is that i8 cases the decisions were so heavily conditioned by the Bord as to not resemble the applications passed by DCC; in a further 15 cases the decisions were overturned. There have been some horrific buildings errected in Dublin n over the past 10 years; all of which were on DCC’s watch.

The current system suits no-one; developers are encouraged by architects to apply for more than they will get and paying a multiple of the professional fees they needed to, planning resources are wasted looking at sites on multiple occaisions, banks are funding a process where there are no clear outcomes, occupiers are paying inflated rents and capital values because only some schemes are getting Bord permission and parts of the City have been wrecked.

Please do not try to be clever by raising red herrings such as inspectors reports. I have never voted for Gormely despite having many opportunities to do so but on this he needs to get a result.

I thought it was highly ironic that Sean Fitzpatrick’s last poker game was over a Nigerian Oil Field, clearly games without rules were an environment he was very familiar with and as the primary financier behind the boom and bust in this local authority his risk gauge was very indicative.

@forrestreid wrote:

And why should that frighten them?

At the moment DCC is dominated by FG and Labour. The Councillors of those parties confidently assume that the new Mayor position will be held by either FG and Labour.

They would only be too delighted if Gormley increased the power of the Mayor – will make it easier to ignore the bleatings of the few FF and Green Councillors that are left in the Dublin Councils

That assumes that the office will be politicised and not ala New York where the current mayor Michael Bloomberg was not from the political classes. Someone like Senator Feargal Quinn or a younger version from corporate Ireland would make an exceptional consensus candidate.

@PVC King wrote:

Tommy as always on de money..

Please do not try to be clever by raising red herrings such as inspectors reports. .

I’m not trying to be remotely clever. Inspectors’ reports are supposed to inform the final decision. If they are regularly overruled then it calls into question the validity of both the report and also the ability of the inspector to adjudicate – or, more likely, the ability of the Bord to adjudicate. Much as LA’s tend to take the easy way out because ABP awaits any decision they make, it must be demorlaising for inspectors to have their expertise cast aside also.

ABP take decisions based upon meetings of a board of “experts” whereby the majority vote counts. I don’t think people realise that a scheme might go to a meeting of ABP where 6 members are present. Those 6 may vote and, if tied 3 for, 3 against, it is held over. When it is voted on again there might be 5 of the same people and one different person and the scheme be passed 4 to 2. There might, conversely, be 7 completely different people there and a scheme be consigned to the rubbish bin by a similarly single vote. It might be democracy but it’s a flawed one

15 refusals and 8 heavily conditional grants are the issue at hand; should the Bord arrive at a decision by majority or by a unanimous decision is not the issue; the issue is the level which is issuing the refusal. The bottom line is that DCC’s record on major schemes is significantly flawed, developers were led down the garden path at first instance when what they needed was DCC to perform their function in interpreting the development plan to a level that could stand the scrutiny of the National Planning Appeals Bord. NAMA has a number of properties that could have been pre-let prior to the collapse had the applicants secured consent within normal timeframes by International standards and would now be occupied and income producing.

@PVC King wrote:

15 refusals and 8 heavily conditional grants are the issue at hand; should the Bord arrive at a decision by majority or by a unanimous decision is not the issue; the issue is the level which is issuing the refusal. The bottom line is that DCC’s record on major schemes is significantly flawed, developers were led down the garden path at first instance when what they needed was DCC to perform their function in interpreting the development plan to a level that could stand the scrutiny of the National Planning Appeals Bord. NAMA has a number of properties that could have been pre-let prior to the collapse had the applicants secured consent within normal timeframes by International standards and would now be occupied and income producing.

do I stutter? you bandy about the word “Bord” as if it is a board rather than a random collection of whoever doesn’t have to be elsewhere on the night of the BORD meeting. We’ve already been through the whole development plan issue earlier in this thread. I’ve already covered comprehensibly elsewhere the flaws of the LAs and the planning system. You tend to try to cloud issues with financial gobbledygook but it drives me absolutely up the FUCKING wall that everyone finds fault in every part of every iota of the planning system in this country and yet reveres ABP as some kind of avengeing angel rather than some kind of chaotic collection of opinions kick started into action, either correctly or vindictively, by a third party to cover the confusion created by vague development plans and local authorities who don’t have to bear the consequences of their own decisions because of the safety net of the avengeing angel itself.

An Bord represents a group of built environment professionals of the highest calibre; they are asked by both applicants and observers to determine first instance planning decisions made in cases where the appellant feels it is worth paying a not insubstantial fee for a second elevated opinion. DCC does not have an acceptable record in large planning cases in front of these elevated professionals; equally seriously they refuse to take ministerial investigation seriously. This is not acceptable they are a local authority reliant on taxpayer support not a private enterprise with the independence that such a status provides.

There is no financial gobbledygook as you put it; it is very simple; finance was thrown around like the underlying money wasn’t real; major planning applications at DCC level didn’t pass next stage, developers needed a couple of years to then secure permission; when the music stopped certain developers were sitting on projects that the market had in many cases no demand for. It’s called cause; DCC’s inability to interpret the National Appeals Board’s standards of planning in major cases; and effect schemes that were delayed beyond the crash and have left Nama with severly delayed projects.

This is not the case with all 23 schemes but other than a few very well located retail schemes €m’s in planning and architects fees are to the many insolvent developers and their counterparties a lethal catalyst that has ruined them as opposed to a simple professional service required to secure local government consent.

@PVC King wrote:

&

Were those calculations done on an Abacus?

15 reversals are 15 reversals on major schemes as decided by a bord of the most emminent planners as appointed by Government; by granting planning permissions that were not professionally assessed to a standard capable of passing an Bord Pleannala they created a new layer of risk which meant that meant developers paid significantly higher financing costs due to the requirement to wait for the ABP decision and then spend months reapplying. If the decisions were bullet proof at first instance a lot more schemes would have been built prior to the music stopping…..

I would love to see a planning student do a thesis on the percentage of professional fees as a percentage of build costs on major schemes built in Dublin between 2004 and 2009; comparisons to London or Frankfurt would not be pretty.

You just love making unfounded allegations and taking the “safe” side of whomsoever you see as the final authority don’t you PVC King?

Who says the decisions of the local authority weren’t professionally assessed?

Did you read the Planners Report, the development plan, the Objections, and form a balanced opinion?

Similarly did you read the ABP Inspector’s Report, the Members Direction and Deliberation and assess whether they had appropriately assessd the Appeal?

Good planning decisions are about reaching an acceptable balance.

Your statistical analysis of ABP decisions is a nonsense – each must be reviwed by itself.

Allow me ot explain a little of why this is so.

There is a problem with Dublin in terms of efficient running of the city that centres on achieving an acceptable level of density -vs- amenity, congestion and overlooking.

Attempts tp reach this balance are going tp be compromised because we still do not have an acceptable, affordable, modern public transport system even between the canals – thankfully most of us can cycle.

The original “ring of towers” applications [one in Clondalkin, one near Heuston Station, the O2 Tower, the U2 Tower, and the Ballsbridge Tower are all scupperd one way or another, but they they least showed people were thinking about the problem.

Now apply all this to the current planning system, where each local authority creates a development plan every five years.

The development plan has been defined by one Galway judge as being a form of contract between the Council, the electorate and stakeholders IIRC – I could stand corrected on the detail of the phrase but that was the gist of it.

Many differing and competing views have to be brought into some form of equilibrium for any viable – never mind “fair” – planning decision to be made.

Equally planning decisions need to be arrived at in a timely manner and in an way where unnecessary costs to not accrue to the parties involved.

Despite the legality of it having been questioned, I support the €20 “crank deterrent” Observation fee, and the €50 Appeal Observation fee, as a means of helping streamline the process.

I am less enamoured of the SDZ process, because people not in the professions related to building tend not to think so far ahead – which implies the people most affected may not be able to properly assess the implications – but as one way forward which seeks consensus at an early stage to avoid later delays it has something to recommend it.

FWIW

ONQ.

On the subject of observers in the planning process and onq makes yet another vexatious post in a thread that he otherwise wasn’t involved in as he prefers personal attack to answering a straight question.

BTW

The record speaks for itself; 15 reversals and 8 emasculations…….

This is not about density it is about excessive massing in specific applications being indicated as permissable to applicants without due consideration being given as to whether it would be interpreted by the planning appeals board as compliant with the development plan. The failure of some of these applications has had very serious implications for applicants, banks and by extension the taxpayer in some cases by way of the developments that would have been viable pre 2007 no longer being viable once ABP sought revised schemes.

@PVC King wrote:

The Dublin City Council Response

You’ve got to hand it to the City Council! They grant permission for anything that moves over a period of six years, then come out spitting and hissing when a review of their slap-it-all-through record is being made ….. can only be the bluster of someone backed into a corner: their efforts to remove decades-old height restrictions in the city have proven extremely unpopular (over 350 submissions to the current Draft City Dev. Plan on the height and density issue), and their agility with the rubber stamp now becoming fully exposed.

In response to DCC’s claims of inaccuracy, AT say the details of the 23 cases cited by it are all backed up with links to planning decisions – http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0720/1224275075131.html

(The calling for an investigation into DCC’s planning record by AT was initially reported on RTE Six One news of 13 August last year, in the wake of the Carlton scheme being hit for major changes – http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0813/9news_av.html?2593793,null,230)

Prime Time last night on the Ghost Estates – http://www.rte.ie/news/2010/0729/primetime_av.html

“At one stage we were importing people to build the houses so as we could rent them to them.” (!)

Credit were it is due; well done Minister Gormley.
“Cork city has enough housing and ‘zoned’ land to last for another 64 years”.
So much for Development plans that last 5 years!

Jail any officials or councillors that are proved guilty of cronyism.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2010/0730/1224275811147.html

Regardless of your point of view as to the constitution of the Bord and how decisions are made, in reference to DCC I think it is very interesting that the Bord are now acting as the planning authority in reference to the Carlton Site. There is no more damning indictment than the ‘give it here’ approach ABP took with the Carlton decision – removing DCC from the planning ‘loop’ and asking the developer to resubmit plans to ABP and not to DCC (following a refusal).

This says an awful lot about the state of planning in Dublin. What a pity that DCC had already granted permission for demolition of the Royal Dublin Hotel.

@Smithfield Resi wrote:

I would have thought Meath could have provided enough material for years??

Catalogue of some of their buffoonery here:

‘A Royal Tradgedy – Meath County Council and its Management are out of their depth in planning and ignore their own plans’
http://www.villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2010/03/a-royal-tragedy/

Meath are well known for their planning faux pas.

A few years ago, a client – having transferred land to Meath to partly satisfy his social and affordable obligations – was surprised to see his site for over 100 houses, which was zoned land and lay directly abutting existing housing and with a reserved access passing some fourteen out of two hundred houses [minimising the impact overall] had become subject to the “prioritization” game.

To add insult to injury a site to one side of the town for an 700+ house scheme, had been prioritized, despite the local need for the town more suiting our client’s 100-house scheme and despite the fact it was impossible to integrate it properly due to existing lease patterns – the town would effectively have two town centres

Part of this large scheme [co-incidentally – 100 houses!] was granted permission by Meath Co. Co, despite the fact that it contravened one of their own development plan objectives. The planning officer wrote in support of the scheme to An Bórd Pleanála, only to be rebutted by a curt reminder by the Inspector of the Council’s Strategic objective which should have prevented any grant being made.

Our client’s site still languishes under the Prioritization game until 2013 despite a meeting earlier this year suggesting all would be well “in a few weeks” – of course, nothing was done to redress the balance.

And the land the Council cheerfully took for a nominal amount?

Its already providing a landscaped public area, exercise trail and playground to serve the local community.

---

On another site, with another client, I was requested to show where parking could be provided for a mixed development in Navan. I brought our engineer along for the next meeting and we showed where the Council could provide car spaces for us. Nothing was agreed. The Planner moved on to another position and was replaced with someone who had no agenda, who expressed his astonishment when he saw out revised parking provision layour.

“Why are you showing me this?”

We explained.

“But this is a designated urban renewal site – there aer no parking requirements.”

We admitted we knew this. He was flabbergasted, but the work was in front of him which his predecessor had requested.

The last planner, the good, intelligent forward thinking planner, who liked to promote good design, was seconded to some northern townland.

The first one, the arsehole with some unknown agenda, is now the head planning officer in a Dublin local authority.

And we ended up with a third one, who couldn’t make a decision to save her life for two months.
She finally accedes to the conservation officers request and took off a storey – affecting the profitably of the scheme to its serious detriment -.
This was because she thought the conservation officer’s idea of leaving a view of a church from a street with a bridge obscuring the view for much of it should be adhered to.

Yet another scheme ruined by extended decision making, seeming to betray other agendas.
Its hard to know where simple incompetence stops and planning corruption begins.
But I know where it stopped with the guy looking for the car spaces – he’s on my list.

So much for Meath Co Co planning.

ONQ.

Interesting article from the Guardian on the apparent failures of the ‘urban renaissance’ movement/neoliberal culture of development in the UK:

A disdain for urban planning is the problem, not overcrowding
Owen Hatherley

England is now the second most crowded country in the European Union, after Malta. It has, for the first time, inched past the Netherlands, with 402.1 people per square kilometre, compared with the Dutch 398.5. This statistic coincides with a rise in net migration, partly caused by a decline in outward emigration. Some have already been quick to link the two.

Overcrowding, class, immigration and race have long been linked in certain quarters. From the apocalyptic 18th century predictions of Malthus through the cannibal megalopolis of the film Soylent Green to the “demographic threat” in Israel-Palestine, the prospect of a teeming mass of inferior folk causing mayhem and starvation, or simply outnumbering “us”, has been a persistent obsession.

But if the EU report is given more than a cursory glance, it is easily seen that the apparently alarming statistic is actually about population density, not immigration, “over” crowding or “over” population – nor even the population density of the UK. England might have a density of 402.1 per square km, but the UK as a whole is well below the Netherlands and Belgium at 256.3, roughly the same level as Germany. Scotland and Wales are far below either, with Scotland’s level of 70.9 placing it lower than Slovenia, Bulgaria, Romania. So what this is really about is concentration of population in very particular places and underpopulation elsewhere. A response to that doesn’t necessitate draconian immigration caps, but rather something terribly unfashionable – town planning.

Densely populated areas are not necessarily slums. Among the densest places in the UK are Mayfair and Pimlico, or the west ends of Glasgow and Edinburgh. With their expensive stucco squares and sandstone tenements, these places are by no means dystopian. Given their extreme desirability, an extremely high population density is clearly not so alarming.

Architects and planners, disenfranchised by the suburban non-plan of Thatcherism, spent the 80s and 90s agitating for tightly packed housing, the use of urban brownfield sites, compact cities, piazzas and public transport – all attempts to manage and make urban density comfortable. Under New Labour, this generation – architects like Richard Rogers, planners like Ricky Burdett – had the chance to implement these ideas.

You can see the results all over the UK, wherever “mixed use” blocks of flats fill former industrial land, in the skylines of Leeds and Manchester, in east London. Usually, the results entailed four- to 12-storey flats, built around squares, with mooted shops and facilities in the ground floor. An inner-city housing boom started to match its suburban precursor.

In reality, the shops and nurseries became empty units or estate agents, the squares were inept and windswept, and speculative developers crammed as many tiny flats into their plots as possible. In Stratford you can see the grimmest results – aesthetically stunted, architecturally bumptious towers crowding round wasteland. Does this invalidate the idea? Should we, as some Tories suggest in their screeds against the ludicrous myth of “garden grabbing”, celebrate the end of the attempted “urban renaissance” and return to the pseudo-rural suburban sprawl of the 80s, and the depopulation and desuetude of our cities?

Or rather, should we acknowledge that the problem with New Labour, and Rogers and Burdett was that they didn’t plan enough? Rather than being held to strict standards, developers were given carte blanche; instead of council housing easing the overcrowding of the poor, a percentage of allegedly affordable housing was sold in each block of terracotta-clad yuppiedromes. Meanness – “value engineering” as it is euphemistically known – was what made the New Labour landscape so grim, not height, planning or modernity, and certainly not overcrowding.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/aug/26/urban-planning-overcrowding

People say the Guardian is for over educated, middle class, lefties, with planet saving notions [unfulfilled] and that it’s on a mission to challenge and preach, but that’s probably a bit unfair and anyway I never mind being preached to when the person preaching is talking sense.

That article makes a decent point in that it’s too easy to condemn a whole urban regeneration philosophy on the basis of the flaws in particular examples and the people who, deep down, don’t really believe in urbanism will be the first ones in with the withering condemnations.

It’s a debate we don’t even have over here and I’d be surprised if the Gormley review starts one up, although it should have the potential to.

What’s more likely to happen to the Gormley review is that the respondants will continue to bluster around the issues and we’ll be left with inconclusive findings and the real debate about urban planning will never get going, or rise above the tittering around the distraction of ‘Does size matter’ in events like the forthcomming Open House Debate.

In reality, the shops and nurseries became empty units or estate agents, the squares were inept and windswept, and speculative developers crammed as many tiny flats into their plots as possible. In Stratford you can see the grimmest results – aesthetically stunted, architecturally bumptious towers crowding round wasteland. Does this invalidate the idea? Should we, as some Tories suggest in their screeds against the ludicrous myth of “garden grabbing”, celebrate the end of the attempted “urban renaissance” and return to the pseudo-rural suburban sprawl of the 80s, and the depopulation and desuetude of our cities?

Such polemical journalism is exactly why only Oxford educated Blairites read the Gaurdian. Conversely moves by Eric Pickles to give communities more power by removing centralised housing targets foisted on local authorities from Whitehall previously have sent the BPF into a very unfreindly view of the new coaition govt. Very few toys left in the housebuilders prams.

Retail at these locations falled in many cases because the public open space simply wasnt attractive enough for people to engage in cafe culture; if retail units tilted towards leisure fail sitting under hundreds of flats then the design of the specific local environment is clearly the problem not policy.

@PVC King wrote:

. . . if retail units tilted towards leisure fail sitting under hundreds of flats then the design of the specific local environment is clearly the problem not policy.

Is that not what the guy is saying – is his own Guardian way?

In his own Guardian way being the operative in this case. Instead of saying that top-down planning targets force mistakes from local planners by placing pressure to hit output targets; the author introduces height and takes a swipe at Pickles which is factually incorrect.

To put the quailty of a lot of these schemes into perspective many were designed between 2002-2005 with price targets of UK€100,000 for 1 bed flats; at those price levels something had to give.

In Dublin the price for a typical & bed may have been €350,000 but the quailty was equally poor because quality simply wasnt enforced. When Liam Carroll ends up as your lqrgest apartment producer you really have to wonder who was signing off the permissions and why they accepted such low standards;

tobee

http://www.stalforbund.com/Staldag2008/GroBonesmo1.pdf
http://www.stalforbund.com/Staldag2008/GroBonesmo2.pdf

@PVC King wrote:

Such polemical journalism is exactly why only Oxford educated Blairites read the Gaurdian. Conversely moves by Eric Pickles to give communities more power by removing centralised housing targets foisted on local authorities from Whitehall previously have sent the BPF into a very unfreindly view of the new coaition govt. Very few toys left in the housebuilders prams.

Retail at these locations falled in many cases because the public open space simply wasnt attractive enough for people to engage in cafe culture; if retail units tilted towards leisure fail sitting under hundreds of flats then the design of the specific local environment is clearly the problem not policy.

I would tend to agree in that the environment at the base of tower buildings is not the best in terms of wind conditions alone, and where the urban “form” such as it is, reflects the Corbusian ideal of point-block separated by garden spaces you are goign to have the down-draft effect exacerbated by wind-tunnel effects.

You tend not to miss the shielding and wind baffling effects of 4-6 storey urban streets until its gone.

In terms of the shops and facilities, integration has worked in Dublin and Dun Laoghaire to some degree and in new towns like Ongar in the North County.

The places you describe simply may not have either enough disposable income per capita or total population numbers to have made them work. In other words, other facts than the design of the environment might have been relevant. The people in the local shop might simply have charged too much, like they do everywhere.

ONQ.

@missarchi wrote:

tobee

http://www.stalforbund.com/Staldag2008/GroBonesmo1.pdf
http://www.stalforbund.com/Staldag2008/GroBonesmo2.pdf

That’s SUCH an interesting brownfield development.

The context, the references, the history.

Thanks for posting those links.

ONQ.