Vertigo? U2 tower to be taller

Has Archiseek been taken over by Indymedia..? :confused:

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the subject of another tribunal, along with Landsdowne Road. Up until now, there has not been anyone willing to call up the relevant authorities on the blatant conflicts of interest on both these projects in the appointment of the advisors and the preferred bidders. I reckon now that there is little or no good reason for people to try and stay on the “good” side of these “authorities” that people will start to question the decisions made. Clear and unambiguous conflicts existed in both cases, and would have been questionable at the very least under European Competition laws. The problem was that no one wanted to be the whistle blower. Now that the bid fees invovled could solve some issues for some of the unsuccessful bidders (circa €1-2m per bid), they might pursue them for this.
I personally would encourage an enquiry into the practices of the DDDA. They were established as an authority to serve the people of Dublin and in particular the environs of the Docklands. Whilst there has been great development in the area made possible by the establishment of the DDDA and the masterplan model in place, there have been questionable levels of competance shown in the delivery of the design competitions run, and in the bending of their own rules in order to suit their own purposes (Liam Carroll’s planning that was recently ruled to be outside the DDDA’s authority to grant).

At the end of that article it says the DDDA never received any government funding. Whilst this is true, it has received the proceeds of the sale of what are esentially state assets in the form of land. It also acquired a stock of social and affordable housing, which it no doubt received some remuneration for when selling (the affordable elements at least). Not only this though, but they are a public body and the planning authority for the area, and in the case of the glass bottle site, they reinvested money’s which were gathered through the sale of state property etc, in a partnership on the glass bottle site. This is a clear conflict, and should be outside their remit and ability. Its like allowing a developer to by a planning authority and basically build what he likes. It completely blurs the lines between private commerce and governance/regulation.