"Redesigning Dublin" – Chief City Planner Dick Gleeson’s vision for Dublin

Does anybody notice that the traffic in the city centre actually seems to get worse every single day? More murderous, more impossible for the pedestrian and cyclist? And it’s no thanks to these idiots who are bringing larger vehicles into the city. They seem to account for about one in 5 vehicles now.

I’m behind Dick in pretty much all of that. Though the area of management of the public domain – roads, pavements, signage etc. – seems to be perpetually overlooked. I know that’s not the Chief Planner’s job, but somebody has to look after it.

that thread title made me shudder. However it all makes sense. At least he has a vision, if somewhat flawed. How will all this work though? He more or less neglects transport in that piece until the end, but it;s the critical element (I acknowledge it could be down to selective journalism) . Simply saying more LUAS lines is ridiculous. This is the Chief Planner’s job and DCC are not doing it. They’ve gone back to the drawing board again on Line BX. DCC RPA and Dublin Bus still at loggerheads…

He talks about architecture and urban design but that City Hall carbuncle was granted on his watch. Arnott’s were let apply to rip up O’Connell St. on his watch. The drab DDDA muck was done on his watch, he supported the Cable Car as well. A phrase involving money and mouth springs to mind, Mr. Gleeson

Without wanting to sound like his apologist, I think the forces he faces – from business interests, semi-states defending their patch, a non-urbanist establishment, an increasingly individualistic populace etc. – against creating a cultured, first-rate, public-transport and pedestrian-focussed European city are massive.

I would agree about problems in urban design – you mention the carbuncle on Dame Street. Personally I feel that, while we have a good chief planner, some of the Development Control planners’ interpretation of a ‘densify’ policy is causing problems. Some horrific stuff has been let through in recent times – more damaging to the city than any of the mediocre ’90s crap. Henrietta Street I suppose would be the biggest calamity.
Some, not all, I stress. There are good planners in there too, who are not afraid to refuse shite.

Re: Line BX, I was at an RPA metro consultation workshop before xmas and they mentioned that they had narrowed BX down to two options – both going through College Green (hooray!) – and will be advertising these for comment this month. I genuinely believe Luas through here will be the silver bullet, golden bullet and every other type of bullet for traffic in the city centre.

Re: the Arnotts car park ramp – the council have indicated their unwillingness to facilitate this idea in their Further Information request.

I agree solving the transport problem is the key to much of this … encouraging to see that the potential of the Phoenix Park and the quays have been recognised. Hopefully now words will become actions.

@alonso wrote:

th The drab DDDA muck was done on his watch,

In fairness the DDDA has its own planning powers

true jdivision, but I believe there’s an ambiguity there where the City Council can have a say, maybe not

Devin “Re: the Arnotts car park ramp – the council have indicated their unwillingness to facilitate this idea in their Further Information request.”. I read that as them asking the developer to give them stronger proof that this is the only option, so that in the case of an Appeal and Oral Hearing irrefutable evidence can be provided vindicating this approach. Pre-planning consultation did not remove it from the proposal, which always worries me. Did they ask for a revision? I didn’t think they had.

Yeh BX is going back to consultation, about 1 year since the last one… hopefully this will achieve exactly what we all have in our heads in relation to the Civic Spine. They’re taking their sweet time though…

And yeh I agree he faces an uphill struggle, as many officials have over the years. I honestly think that, despite my many gripes, he’s winning the battle, and the improvements over the last decade have been immense. I just think he tends to live on the bullsh1t side of the street with phrases like “bring ”design energy’ to Ballsbridge”, Although what he said above on high rise is absolutely spot on, especially his underhanded rebuttal of Morrisey’s nonsense.

Feb 19th will be a very big day for the city. (open to correction on the date) The day the truck ban comes in. Once people see the effects of taking that traffic away, they’ll start thinking about other traffic. Remember it wasn’t that long ago that O’Connell st was effectively an urban highway until the parnell sq. restriction came in. I believe they’re going to ban through traffic in front of the GPO (you won’t be able to drive past it anymore) soon enough too, which will help greatly.

Mr Gleeson advocates improving the banks of the liffey along the quays and following Copenhagen’s lead by cordoning off a certain section of the river for water sports.
This is great, but there is no mention of actually cleaning up the river itself; I recently strolled along the quays from Heuston station to the “Hey penny” bridge” a lovely site indeed; road cones on the bottom (several actually standing up-right in a straight line) bicycle frames, shopping trolley etc, it looked like I’d chanced upon the remains of some lost aquatic civilisation, such an embarrassment!
How much would it cost the DCC to get a couple of blokes out there in a boat and clean up what appears to be half a century of neglect?

There was also a proposal to put a weir on the Liffey like the Lagan weir to keep the water level higher … a clean up would definitely also be warranted though..

Alonso, where did the suggestion to ban through traffic at the GPO come from? Any idea when this will come in and how it would work in practice. Thanks.

@TLM wrote:

..
Alonso, where did the suggestion to ban through traffic at the GPO come from? Any idea when this will come in and how it would work in practice. Thanks.

I thought I read that again when BX was being talked about recently? I think it was suggested years ago, but the advent of the Spire and GPO Plaza and Line BX up O’Connell St, (well half of it anyway) will add weight to the proposal. I think local effects will include Northbound traffic having to use Middle Abbey St and Southbound Cathal Brugha st. or something. Strategically people will avoid the area altogether using Capel and Marlborough at least. It could reconfigure trips quite dramatically in the North City if it ever happens…

Am I confused or would the new bridge over the Liffey and then moving onto Benburb street etc involve traffic on the Luas lines?

no jdivision, I’m confused by this aswell. Dunno where this bridge would be except over CIE’s lands…

@alonso wrote:

no jdivision, I’m confused by this aswell. Dunno where this bridge would be except over CIE’s lands…

I think I know where the bridge would got but if traffic was to go down Benburb Street, the back of Croppies Acre etc then surely the Luas couldn’t run there properly

I would definitely like to hear more about that plan. The idea of removing traffic from the front of Heuston was mentioned in the Reflecting City website, but not in such a drastic way.
The eastern boundary of the Clancy Barracks site makes a curve from St. John’s Road over to Conyngham Road, so I’m presuming this is where the traffic would be directed, because east of that is all railway lines. Still, there is the question of what the traffic would do when it gets to Benburb Street.

And when he talks about the Paris style gravel boulevard between the Liffey and the Park, does he mean eliminating Chapelizod Road? Sounds mad at first, but when you think about it there are two roads here duplicating each other – St. John’s Road and it. It’s not that necessary.

Alonso, yes the council’s AI request for Arnotts could be read like you say. Still, I thought it showed a lot of resistance. They even mentioned alternative locations; Abbey Street and Liffey Street – <a href="http://www.dublincity.ie/swiftlg/apas/run/WPHAPPDETAIL.DisplayUrl?theApnID=5170/06&theTabNo=2&backURL=Search%20Criteria%20>%20Arnotts Additional Information request

Devin, yeh maybe a bit cynical on my part, but the Application itself assessed somewhat the issues and options raised in the AI, such as Abbey and Liffey street. My own take would be a refusal should have been issued if they were against it, not an AI. In any case they want way too many parking spaces in a location to be served by so many buses, LUAS, Metro and close to DART

Cynical, alonso? That makes two of us.

Having read down through the list, very little of it seems to be entirely new. Most of the elements have been floating around for a while now in some form and have yet to be acted on or implemented, so it hardly fills me with confidence.

Also, I’m getting a little bit tired of inspiration coming from other cities, as if their ideas and experiences are directly transferable to our conditions. Admittedly good ideas are often good ideas, but to presume that, because something worked elsewhere, it will work here strikes me as a bit naive. Watch what’s going to happen with the free bikes, for example (I know it’s not directly relevant to this discussion- I’m just using it as an example).

Though at least the horizons have been broadened beyond Barcelona Barcelona Barcelona…:rolleyes:

One other thing: I’ve heard rumours of proposals to calm or remove traffic on Knockmaroon Hill and Martin’s Row that would dovetail quite nicely with the Chapelizod Road idea, as would the Phoenix Park Transportation Plan that was published recently (contrary to the fears of some residents of adjacent to the Park).

I’m with the sceptics too. I could spend half an hour picking through the views in the story but it’d be a bit pointless given that there is very little real coherence or principle behind the selection of ideas being presented; to me he sounds like a kid with a big Lego set as he seems to lack the ability to prioritise the problems affecting the city. What irritates is that there isn’t a single mention of the embarrassing state of the streets in most of the city: the poor state of road and footpath surfaces, the clutter, the poor placement of trees, the many cheap and nasty “street fittings” (bins, signage, bollards, etc.) and the poor treatment of historic features like paving. I guess there’s not enough glamour or novelty in trying to fix these problems; in my opinion, even provincial UK towns and cities are far ahead of Dublin in this regard at this stage.

As an example of the lack of focus or ability to prioritise, It’s weird that he sees Ballsbridge as one of the priority areas of the city which needs improving. It reminds of of the Labour TD being interviewed about Sean Dunnes development on the Jury’s site where he was demanding that sufficient affordable housing be made available for locals. Simply farcical.

He also deserves criticism for, in the past, doing his best to do an “O’Rourke” on public transport in the city by ignoring the serious research done by the DTO and championing of his own figure-of-eight Luas in the city.

To begin on a positive note, Gleeson’s take on heights is to be welcomed – 7 or 8 floorrs is the optimum imo…. I also like his ideas as to the reinterpretation of the old Chapelizod road as a new boulevard – provided, that is, that it does not simply become a stalking horse that would eat away at the Phoenix Park.

However I too am concerned by the new bridge and rerouted traffic proposals; I presume Mr Gleeson is aware that the Luas is routed by this street, and that there is only one other traffic lane – at the moment currently west-bound. The street is simply too narrow and leads only onto other narrow streets, which are already Luased; so where would the inbound traffic go after Benburb Street?

There have been suggestions floating about for a long time that it would be a real boon if the Phoenix Park and the Royal Hospital Kilmainham could be “linked up”. Add to the mix the War Memorial Gardens and possibly Croppies Acre, and it would appear that there certainly is a lot of amenity spaces within the area that have up until now bourne little relationship with each other. To progress this agenda of inter-linked recreational usage of these areas would be wonderful; however I am baffled as to how routing thru-traffic across the river further west and along Conyngham road is likely to achieve this – if anything it would seem more likely to further segregate parks away from each other and discourage non-motorised users from going from one to the other…Maybe the journalist got that bit wrong as it does strike me as bonkers :confused:

One other aspect of concern with what is being proposed is the potential impact on Croppies Acre, an area far too long neglected – but what impact will a new road have,? Also I would like to see further detail as to this Louvre-style entrance (something that also came as news to a pal of mine who is one of the directors of the National Museum!)… Rather than such grand proposals, maybe it might be a better bet to get the acre functioning as a park by planting it up, new fountains, a children’s history play-ground etc?

Finally I am greatly dissapointed by Dick Gleeson’s prioritisation of southside suburbs over inner-city northside; the areas that badly need attention (and money) are around the North inner city – not the well-moneyed and settled areas of Ballsbridge, Rathgar, or the “gold coast” along the Dart line. Such “white-flight” type of redevelopment was exactly what lead to the decay of Dublin centre in the 60’s – as repeated again and again in Frank Mc D’s Destruction of Dublin – and in particular, it was Ballsbridge that was cited as the key example 😮

There is no attempt to address the pressures (and also pluses) of the new etnic communities in the north city; it is a shame that this area in terms of density, usage, etc simply does not figure on Mr Gleeson’s radar. You would think, what with the council just after having launched their much-vaunted Henrietta St Conservation Plan that they must have a strong committment to the area, and that the City Planner would at least mention it? Oh, hold on theres no money scheduled by the council for Henrietta Street, just as there was no proper budget for the 2001 Dorset St & Environ Framework Plan – and what got delivered there; bugger all 😡 (1/2 a project out of 6, 6 years on).
No, if you want to see DCC’s real commitment to Dublin’s northside, have a look at what they permitted to be built around the old church on Sean MacDermot Street, or at the bottom of Henrietta Street. As the Israelis say, “its the reality on the ground that counts”

Not to worry, I am sure that it’ll all be fine for Mr Gleeson’s beloved southside – which is happily enough where he lives. Who would have guessed :rolleyes:

H

@hutton wrote:

. . . maybe it might be a better bet to get the acre functioning as a park by planting it up, new fountains, a children’s history play-ground etc?

H

I don’t think this is likely, the acre is a grave isn’t it?

Yesh it’s the site where the rebels bodies were dumped..

@notjim wrote:

I don’t think this is likely, the acre is a grave isn’t it?

It is indeed a mass grave; however that should not preclude it from being tastefully upgraded to a decent park with a purpose – unlike the disgraceful treatment of the graveyard/ park at St Marys beside the Jervis Centre. There the gravestones were relaid as a footpath 😮 😡 ; isnt it an irony too that underneath rests the mortal remains of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, one of the leaders of the United Irishmen and who single-handedly rowed to France in an open top boat in order to avoid capture.

(His country house Rathcoffey outside Maynooth is well worth a visit – Neo-classical pile sitting on top of an intact medieval hall-house…while his 4-bay townhouse is nearing restoration in Leinster St – owned by the National Gallery, they failed in their attempt to whack it 😮 for their millenium wing – subsequently the restoration job was begun by the late, great, Arthur Gibney).

So many noises emminate from the Civic Offices regarding ‘plans for Dublin’ but so few seem to get anywhere. What about:

The Markets – a whole framework area no less, unveiled with much hype years ago but nothing has been done apart from demolish the old Fish Markets. I understand there were a number of problems but surely we should see some progress on this soon. A private sector variation of this scheme has been lodged for the old Iveagh Markets and I bet it gets completed first!

Parnell Square redevelopment – will surely take 15 years to complete at its present snails pace. John Fitzgerald indicated last Jan (or was it Jan 2005) when he announced the plan that the contractor for the OC Street works would be retained to simply continue the works up around the Square. Nothing has been done although the OPW have begun to construct their new entrance to the Garden of Remembrance.

O’Connell Street itself – still missing about 15 trees at my estimate, plus the kiosks, plus action on the Carlton site, plus removing the old overstreet lighting….

SoHo – announced last year. Hasnt been a dickiebird since.

Poolbeg – Another framework plan that hasn’t moved from the shelf

The Walkable City guff – not much sign of a radical rethink of the appearance and form of the city centre. Certainly no effort to improve things like signage so that tourists can actually understand where they’re going. Speaking of signage, DDDA installed some snazzy new signage units all over the Docklands. Very nice….. until Quality Hotel decided they wanted to tack on their brown finger signage to show the way to their hotel on Mackin Street.

Cathedral Quarter – another masterplan from last year but no immediate actions.

Henrietta Street – well we have seen the laughable paving works

The Temple Bar revamp – went down almost as fast as the proposed hot air balloon on the quays would have. At least they repaired that gapping tarmac infill on Crow Street. Soon to receive a monstrous hulking ‘landmark’ courtesy of Bono and the Lads.

…anyone got anymore……

This was in last weekend’s SBP. Its echoes comments I made about the depay in implementing plans in the city and its good to see the media being proactive in pushing them along.

Also mentioned in a second article/section are Cathedral Quarter and Northern Quarter (or whatever the Arnotts site is called). However since these are relatively recent you can forgive a lack of visible progress.

Many Dublin plans still delayed

25 February 2007
Dublin has experienced a number of cultural changes and has undergone considerable redesign over the past decade, with initiatives such as the Luas, the redevelopment of O’Connell Street and the rejuvenation of Smithfield all changing the face of the city.

But not all of the plans unveiled for the capital over the past number of years have been so successful.

SoHo, the City Markets, the Poolbeg Peninsula, the Cathedral Quarter and Parnell Square are just some of the framework plans launched by Dublin City Council (DCC) in recent years. However, construction work has yet to begin on many of these projects, some of which were first announced more than ten years ago.

Last week, the Digital Hub Development Agency promised that the views of the local community would be central to its plans to develop a new city quarter in the Liberties and Coombe area. The agency is responsible for part of the €2.6 billion redevelopment plan for the Liberties and Coombe, which is to be transformed into a cultural quarter monikered SoHo (south of Heuston Station) by DCC.

Unveiled last April, SoHo encapsulates several framework plans including those for the Digital Hub, Dolphin’s Barn and Cork Street. The plan is to concentrate on family-centred accommodation, schools and public parks with a mix of employment opportunities from the construction of new buildings, the Digital Hub and other technologically-driven services.

The agency launched its latest five-year development plan for the project last Tuesday and hopes that, when it is finished in 2012, between 150 and 250 digital media companies will operate on the nine-acre site, employing up to 3,000 people.

Almost 80 companies are already based at the site, employing 600 permanent full-time workers.

DCC’s senior planner Kieran Rose said environmental improvements for Cork Street are to commence soon, as is the new urban space at Cornmarket, a new Lidl on Cork Street and basic social infrastructure.

‘‘We must be concerned with everything from the iconic to the everyday,” he said.

‘‘The Digital Hub continues to expand, taking new office space throughout the area including 2,000 square metres on Cork Street in the Linsers building and in the new DCC City Lab building.

‘‘Development had been delayed in Dublin 8 and the Liberties for a while but it’s now starting to move ahead.”

Preliminary construction work has commenced at the Clancy Barracks site, which is to accommodate 800 apartments, a hotel and offices. Rose added that work on the Eircom site in the Heuston South Quarter development is well advanced, with the firm’s headquarters due to be completed in the next six months.

‘‘The redevelopment of the various DCC flat schemes is progressing well, with public private partnerships for Theresa’s Gardens and Bridgefoot Street, and the final phase of Fatima is racing ahead,” he said.

However, there are a number of other framework plans where progress has been considerably slower.

The Markets

A €400 million redevelopment is planned for the Markets area of the north-west inner city. Located between Henry Street and Smithfield, the Markets is centred around the Victorian fruit and vegetable market.

The now demolished wholesale fish market, together with the adjacent fruit and vegetable market, was designed and built by Dublin Corporation in 1895.

The rejuvenation of the Markets was first envisaged in 1996,when 109 hectares in the north-west quadrant of the inner city central area was earmarked for rejuvenation. The Historic Area Rejuvenation Project (Harp) was based on creating four local cells within the area, including Smithfield and the Markets.

But while the redevelopment of Smithfield began in 1997 and is now complete, works at the Markets has taken considerably longer to get underway.

Included as a framework plan under DCC’s development plan 2005-2011, the revised draft framework plan for the Markets area is dated January 2006.The fish market site, between Mary’s Lane and Chancery Street next door to the fruit and vegetable market, is to be rebuilt as a commercial and residential complex reaching up to six storeys in height.

The plans include 600 apartments and 60,000 square metres of office/retail space along with underground parking.

The council intends to develop the site as an open civic square between O’Connell Street and the rejuvenated Smithfield, as it is felt that the distance of 1.75 kilometres between Smithfield and O’Connell Street is too great a walk for a physical connection – the new square is designed to be a stepping stone between the two.

The fruit and vegetable market will form the civic square’s centrepiece.

The demolition of the Victorian fish markets in November 2005 was one of the first steps in the council’s regeneration plans.

The first phase of the redevelopment will take place on the fish market and daisy market sites, which will create the bulk of the square, while the second phase comprises the conservation and redevelopment of the fruit and vegetable market, restoring many of its external Victorian feature and redeveloping it internally to increase its capacity for retail food sales.

However, this is a long-term prospect, with building work yet to start.

Paul Crowe of DCC said the council had invited six groups to take part in competitive dialogue regarding the fish market site. He said the council would ask at least two groups to submit tenders in the next month, after which a contract would be awarded for the works at the fish market site.

The council served a public notice last December looking for expressions of interest, in part taking in competitive dialogue – a new process being undertaken prior to tendering.

Heuston and Poolbeg

Two years ago, DCC announced a multi-billion euro redevelopment plan for the city, which included the rejuvenation of rundown areas. More than half a million square metres of commercial property was designated for development and up to 7,500 houses were to be built, with the bulk of this housing and office space designated for the Heuston and Poolbeg areas.

While the Heuston area has seen progress with the construction of residential developments such as Heuston South Quarter, there has been a considerable lack of development at Poolbeg, the manmade peninsula at the east end of the city core.

The framework plan for the regeneration of Poolbeg comprises two documents – the Southbank framework and the Poolbeg project – both of which have three distinct character zones including an urban quarter, office and retail space and recreational areas.

DCC’s senior planner Mary Conway said the peninsula was two miles from the city centre, yet there was a sense of isolation and disconnection.

‘‘We want to ensure it is reconnected with the city centre and our plans include the introduction of a public transport dedicated bridge connecting the end of Sir John Rogerson’s Quay with Poolbeg, which would make it much more accessible,” she said.

Since the launch of the plan, Conway said the council had created a series of 24 public space infrastructure projects within the Poolbeg site. These landscape plans identify service routes that would need to be improved and built to connect the peninsula back into the wider city.

‘‘We have created design briefs for each of the projects and a costing on them,” Conway said. ‘‘The Poolbeg peninsula is divided into three phases, the first of which incorporates a total of 700,000 square metres of development.

“This will include 500,000 square metres of residential property and 200,000 square metres of commercial space.”

The first phase is expected to incorporate a development by Liam Carroll’s Fabrizia Developments on South Bank Road on lands formerly owned by the Irish Glass Bottle Company, according to Conway.

‘‘Fabrizia was granted planning permission for the scheme, however this is on appeal to An Bord Pleanala and we are awaiting a decision,” she said. ‘‘It will incorporate 22,000 square metres of commercial units and 18,000 square metres of residential space.”

Parnell Square

Located at the heart of the city at the northern end of the rejuvenated O’Connell Street, Parnell Square is one of the earliest formal squares laid out in Dublin. But it is currently undervalued and underused, and the public’s perception of the area is poor.

A framework plan to transform the square into a cultural destination was launched in February 2005.

The €200 million public and private invested plan envisages the upgrading of footpaths, lighting, trees and bus lay-bys to the same standard as O’Connell Street, rejuvenating the Ambassador Theatre, improving the entrance and gates of the Garden of Remembrance, expanding the Dublin Writers’ Museum, providing a new hotel on the Colaiste Mhuire site and a new city children’s garden and creche on the north-west corner.

The first phase, which includes improvements to pavements, roads and parking, as well as installing decorative street lighting and planting trees, is expected to cost more than €25 million including the €12 million being spent on the extension to the Hugh Lane Gallery. This phase was due to be complete within 18 months of the plan being announced, but that is now two years ago.

‘‘The public improvement works are at an advanced design stage but construction work has not started on the improvements to the roads, pavements or lighting yet,” said Mary Conway. The time frames for the second and third phases will not be announced until the first phase is complete.

I think the concern about Cathedral Quarter is the proposal to rip up a park and put another new office block type thing on it – given the last experience it shouldn’t happen

I walked the length of Chesterfield Ave from Parkgate and then back again.
Most of the park is practically savannah. It’s just enclosed countryside, or seems that way. It’s one thing to throw a wall around a huge area of land and call it a park. It’s another to give it the infrastructure needed of a city park. So much of the park seems to be wasted space and, while I don’t want to see it “re-zoned”, there is just so many dead areas.