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there’s an election just around the corner
Now that we know that Bertie is in fact a Socialist this is simply Bertie’s interpretation of the Beveridge maxim ‘From the Cradle to the Grave’
BTW
I think you were right with your first post it is part of a turf war over the republican vote and thankfully it is an election year this money will never be spent and in July when reality returns the OPW will continue to maintain Glasnevin like they always have on a shoestring.
This sounds like a very interesting project and as you say the problematic office market will with a a 56% increase in residential prices last year no doubt underpin the values of
have to say i find sdcc’s to be the best … every element of a planning app is scanned in & up there to view, including all 3rd party submissions, the aerial map can be a little on the slow side but much better than dcc’s from what i’ve seen.
Council investigates new use of Dublin square
Monday, 5 March 2007 17:24
Dublin City Council is investigating whether a breach of planning regulations has taken place at the controversial Dartmouth Square in Ranelagh, following the opening of a portable tiles showroom on the site.Businessman Noel O’Gara, who claims he is the owner of the square, opened the showroom today.
The Council says it is considering its response to Mr O’Gara’s latest use of the square, up to and including legal action, depending on the outcome of the investigations by its enforcement officers.
A long dispute began last year after Mr O’Gara tried to turn the square, which has been traditionally used as a public amenity, into a car park.
Dublin City Council obtained an injunction against the car park and secured a compulsory purchase order.
But the purchase has not yet happened because of disagreement over the value of the land – the Council has offered Mr O’Gara €100,000, but he says his valuers have advised him that the land is worth €175m and ‘it would cost €100,000 just to paint the railings’.
This afternoon members of the public can buy slabs of imported granite in the square from Mr O’Gara’s business.
Residents in houses around the square are incensed and say the use of the square as a tiles showroom is irregular.
It is time for this charade to be brought to a swift conclusion in two parts firstly by the granting of an injunction and the jailing of Mr O’Gara for contempt in the place of court should he breach same in relation to the change of use to retail.
The quote that it would cost €100,000 to paint the railings no doubt uttered as ‘a hundred grand’ which I dispute as he could go to Yorkshire and get the locals to do it for a lot less.
Secondly DCC should just push this into arbitration as Mr O’Gara holds a heavily encumbered interest and would lose on costs if his claim is for €175,000,000 as once his claim is denied then costs will automatically be awarded against him. Not even the very emminent Joe Rea could get him a result on this; I think that the City have offered him a multiple of value on this one but were probably right to do so just to expose him fully.
Sounds like it might just possibly be a plan hatched in Humphreys between Mr O’Gara and the local cumman to make the local FF canadate appear strong on planning breaches.
I am very happy that Mr O’Gara has acted in this way as it clearly displays the lengths he is prepared to go to elicit compensation from the ratepayers of the city.
The access to North Princess St is a disaster and when this site is redeveloped both access and egress should be planned from Abbey Street. What would be required to make this work would be a reversal of the traffic direction on Lower Liffey St and Middle Abbey St. This would prevent any traffic requirement access onto O’Connell Street.
Your points in relation to the great mohair are it is felt irrelavant as it is ancient history and as you say yourself they were a very small bunch and not an entire industry.
The reality is that many consumers if unable to drive to the city will drive to out of town malls as against take public transport. If you want a thriving city centre it is important to accomodate consumers and not exclude them; particularly when the motivation is to right wrongs caused 30 years ago.
@magicbastarder wrote:
well, if the government are spending €600m buying out the toll bridge…
The costs of buying each 500 space carpark would be €100m with a residual land value of c€20m on the most prime sites. Repeat this across 10 sites and a net €800m loss would accrue.
The opportunity cost of €800m in Dublin transport terms would be bonkers. Let’s face it we could have spent €800m removing car-parks and have cancelled LUAS. Why didn’t I think of that?
When Dublin has an interconnector, metro, 20 QBC’s and a proper airport maybe then buying out car-parks will be a higher priority than building additional LUAS lines.
Stopping motorists who have no reason crossing the very centre of the city and providing a small number of city centre parking spaces are two very different issues. Critically one represents valid traffic management policy whilst the other represents uncosted idiologically driven witch hunt.
Those aircoach drivers can be a motivated bunch at times; I once got one where the intrnal electrics started smoking it was driven so hard.
The expresion headroom should read headway which is the technical term for planned times between services. The Luas headways are a joke it could easily run on 90 second headways on the Green Line should a spur be built in an opposite direction from Harcourt Rd. I always take early and late trains to avoid peak congestion times on public transport and I am sure it puts some people off; then again peak driving times are pretty uncomfortable as well.
I like the idea of pedestrianising the area from Dawson Street to Georges Street using South King St and Nassau St Dame Street as the additional boundaries. However it is clear that whilst much progress has been made in this direction: this objective will take time to acheive.
The key problem I see in car movement at present is that someone leaving Clonee to shop in Grafton St will probably travel directly through the centre of the city to park in either BT or St Green. Whilst someone in Terenure shopping in Henry St will probably park in Arnotts or Jervis.
Key progress would represent consumer 1 parking in ILAC and consumer 2 parking in Christchurch. At least this way the impacts would be reduced to the edge of the central zone and allow the very core the respite that we all seek.
Why do these threads always descend into car vs bicycle on this forum?
As an individual that travels mostly by train I encounter both car-drivers and cyclists that do not follow the rules and class both as a pain.
BTW
I think it is important that this proposal retains focus as it appears to be the first realistic compromise to emerge yet that delivers both a quality environment without gunthering city traffic flows.
The idea that multi-storey carparks will dissapear is simply unrealistic. On a square footage basis they yield more than prime offices and there is no way that DCC will ever find the €1bn plus to remove what are an irritant and to retailers an asset. Whether we like it or not many consumers will never use public transport.
The trick with these consumers is to make life awkward but not impossible.
What should be a simple and clear issue of re-routing immediately becomes a typically Irish fudge of how to devise and implement “Accessibility” arrangements for the private car parks.
Totally agree; I spent about three minutes scrawling an argument as to why we shouldn’t attempt to buy out multi-story car-parks beofre realising that your main point appears to be ‘end the fudge’ Proper traffic management is required 365 days a year and not just around Christmas time to get shoppers in and out of car-parks; the behaviour of white van man in Dublin as against other cities defies belief at times even more so when white van man is a woman parking in a clearway to pick up 20 Carrolls in Spar.
Each space in City Centre multi-storey car-parks are worth €175-275,000 dependent on location; they are a scarce resource which would cost over €1bn to buy out. There are also large numbers of consumers that would not enter the City Centre in their absence.
Having said that I think what people really want is a City Centre experience that doesn’t involve excessive traffic volumes when they arrive and I agree with other posters that the convenience of pedestrians must come first.
What is sorely missing in Dublin is organisation of the Bus system which in comparison to London is chaotic; It is clear that it may not be be economically viable to build a bus station but the least that could be done in the interim is to ensure a clear passage for buses in the centre of the city unimpeded by traffic that has neither origin nor destination there.
@publicrealm wrote:
What about access to the various car parks on Fleet Street (including the multi-storey near the junction with Westmoreland Street?
Presumably all those who have been given pp for underground/multi storey car parks in the affected area (in accordance with statutory plans) will be compensated?
This was dealt with on the College Green thread the solution is simple left turn from Aston Quay and out as it currently flows.
PTB
Cameras you will find that with the exception of foreign diplomats the London congestion zone works smoothly.
Frank I agree with your sentiments but only where the public transport currently exists and it can’t be argued that these areas are poorly served and it is probably more democratic to exclude than to charge.
Very good point other than reversing the flow of traffic from the carpark to inbound from Abbey Street and outbound from North Princes Street I can see some major problems with this.
My preference would be to allow the Arnotts situation to remain with the redvelopment period giving an ample period for driver habits to be altered and congestion charge style cameras introduced north of Princess St post re-opening of the Arnotts Scheme. No doubt Arnotts would be delighted if you were fined €100 for passing vehicular access to their premises!!!
Well done DTO good to see you back to your controversial and progressive best!
As you well know Grehan is proposing a mainly office scheme which no doubt will be at a much more realistic scale than that of Dunne’s; Grehan’s site also has a much closer relationship to Hume House the obscuring of which has no doubt been a planning objective for this area for a very long time.
The other transactions you refer to I am guessing relate to
1. Carrisbrooke House which has a special situation in that it is much more suited to a landmark building that can be viewed from at least three views and the site is small enough to ensure that it is not bulky.
2. The Franklin House purchase was sheer lunacy given the fact that it is semi-detached to a terrace of protected structures and virtually opposite the US embassy who’s views were no doubt reflected by Bernard McNamara’s redevelopment of the ACCA building 2 doors from the Embassy.
I find it interesting that you attempt to argue the Burlington land value as lessor as being ‘at least €75m per acre’ which appears very light given the quality of occupier that Treasury attracted for their Burlington Road Scheme plus the sheer scarcity of uber prime development sites anywhere in D2/D4 at present.
There is no doubt that land values in prime D4 have accelerated dramatically in recent quarters but in my opinion it is the hangover of 9% stamp duty on commercial property wearing off as opposed to one man trying to waste a prime office i.e. employment generating site as opposed to an application for residential towers that would never clear planning that is driving Ballsbridge land values.
Anecdotal evidence is that land values have risen in the vicinity; however all the other sites are much smaller lot sizes and some have special site attributes which simply don’t translate to the subject site.
I would have a lot more faith if this was Hardwicke or Green Property or even Gerry O’Reilly who all have solid track records in commercial development. I think that Dunne is well out of his depth on this and that his initial play to introduce an over-scaled residential complex to this site were fundamentally flawed. On a max of ten residential floors the plot ratio will kill the residential amentiy unless at least 20 sq m of balcony is provided per unit.
paul h I dont know how (or why) the height could be reduced given the huge sum he forked over
The consideration paid by Sean Dunne to the Doyle Family is entirely irrelivant in the context of the proper planning and sustainable development of the area. For Dunne it was an audacious gamble that if he were allowed to bring Barbican scale to the Knightsbrige of Dublin that he would clean up by securing €2-5m for the best real estate in the City. It appears that DCC won’t play ball and he could now be left holding a very expensive site unless he secures a couple of very large office lettings above where office rents are now he may live to regret this purchase.
‘Site acquisition at the right price is the key to successful property development’
According to Brian Hughes DIT
The 2003/04 routing of a brand new sewer main down the centre of the rail alignment at Dunsany is symptomatic of the type of thing that goes on in Co Meath and the planners in that local authoirty must have a tough time dealing with many of the decisions coming from higher up.
I personally am against de-zoning of the land as this would enable landowners to seek compensation for the financial impact of same. What I am in favour of is the tightening up of standards such as much higher densities and much greater links to public transport and where the original intention was to dezone to make it tougher on transport and other infrastructural grounds to secure consent in the absence of significant capital contributions to specific infrastructure.
Not uncommon unfortunately you should just ask a rival canidate to support your case if you feel hard done by. My advise in such submissions is always suggest what yuo consider to be a better option that will if possible give the applicant they want whilst preserving your residential amenity which from the sounds of things they have yet to consider.
Theoretically a public representative is not prevented from making representations for the defendents in an enforcement case. It is however unusual that a public representative would make representations in a legal matter other than possibly appearing as a character witness.
What is not uncommon is for a public representative to write a letter in support of retention applications in domestic cases such as a driveway or converting an adjoining domestic garage into a granny flat.
What is the application / enforecment concerning?
illegal dump?
Unauthorised Quarry?
Commercial development?
House?
Susan
I am very sorry that you were singled out in this way by some local hack who has no doubt branded you a troublesome and meddlesome individual. Unfortunately this is an all to common occurance but I am sure that as the next local gossip emerges that your week in the spotlight will diminish and fade from peoples memories.
If you felt that the development as proposed did not constitute proper planning and development of the site then you are absolutely right to use your hard earned money to have your voice heard by those who are most qualified to assess planning applications.
Do not forget that local newspapers make a lot of their ad revenue from planning application adverts and as such many journalists would be well disposed to attempting to bully those who stick their head above the parapet so to speak.
I hope that your case has sufficient merit to have been submitted in the first place considering the stress this appears to have cost.
