Frank Taylor
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The correct answer to which route, may be ‘none of the above’. The original intention was to connect the airport metro to the southside luas line and this is now mysteriously not even an option. We are to have instead two separate lines running at the same gauge that terminate in the same place in the city centre but are not connected. The capacity of the southside luas line will continue to be crippled by its on-street section. The tunnel boring machine for the northside metro will be abandoned under Stephen’s Green rather than finishing the job by tunneling on to surface at Ranelagh and join the existing line
So there is a consultation process but the public was not consulted about the most important decision of all.
City centre roadspace is precious. A north-south underground link would free up the road section along harcourt street and stephens green and the unbuilt section between Stephen’s Green and O’Connell Street to be used by pedestrians, buses or bikes whichever makes most sense.
Does anyone know why the north-south metro was abandoned in favour of building this nonsensical on-street link?
The Tallaght scheme looks good. One million times beter than housing estates and enclosed plastic shopping malls. It looks like a real place.
If I had to make any criticisms, they would be:
-it all looks a bit grey (something about the paving? or is it just the viz?)
-how does green space fit in here?
-how do kids fit in here?
-the second last image shows some over bulky structure
-why are doors and entrances often hidden these days? I like a visual cue indicating the importance of the entrance.
-too many flat smooth surfaces make jack a dull building@hutton wrote:
Since the boardwalk has been constructed, I reckon theres a case to be made that the river side foot path should be removed, which would then mean that the path in front of the shops and buildings could be doubled in width: Any takers?
Interesting idea. The boardwalk should be raised to the same height as the footpath. As it stands, it is not overlooked and leaves passers by in fear that they will be mugged. Nothing unique to Dublin; if you venture down for a stroll by the banks of the Tiber, you are at risk from Italian toilet-traders and the like.
@CM00 wrote:
(Final shot is the expansive Liffey quay. Would you walk it? What’s the destination? What’s the point?)
People will walk along here in the same way that they take a stroll along Dun Laoghaire Pier. The apartments and offices being built along this quay will house more than the population of many well known Irish towns.
Also if this weather keeps up…
You’re right, It is more reminiscent of the printing press near City West, which works well in its context.
I don’t like it. It’s going to add to Dame street in the same way that schuh or the eircom building add to O’Connell street. This kind of structure would be better suited to an industrial estate. Other than the central bank, Dame Street consists of a variety of large decorative buildings from a number of eras, all of which tried to evoke the past in some way, combined with georgian or victorian era tall terraced houses that fit in unobtrusively with each other. Now we get a white box with a blind gable, a gallows gimmick, the whole thing ressembling a piece of 1960s computer equipment. How is this modern? It’s about as futuristic as Flash Gordon.
When is this era of shite coming to an end?One off housing simply means isolated rural housing rather than houses built in villages, towns or cities.
Around 32,000 of these houses were built last year in Ireland out of a total of 80,000 dwellings constructed.
There is a debate in Ireland over whether this type of development should be allowed. Currently, government guidelines promote one-off housing and most politcians including the environment minister publicly support it.
@enmareKeith wrote:
My question is why is a property developer permitted to drastically alter the whole feel of a town and build hundreds of houses none of which fit in architecturally with the Heritage Town ?
It is impossible to comment on whether the houses fit in with the town without seeing the plans.
re many objections being lodged against the development – but if planning is permitted – where do we appeal to afterwards ?
You can object to the plans when they are submitted to the council. If the council approves you can then make an objection to An Bord Pleanala. If ABP approve then this is the end of the road (unless you wish to go to the High Court)
Now we have seen the actual plans it would seem that they are trying to make a mini city out of Kenmare.
The proposal contains 300 houses. Hardly a city or even a minicity.
In the opinion of residents this will kill the tourist industry locally (our only major industry) and will greatly increase the problems of traffic,water supply,sewerage and council expenses.
If the development destroys the aesthetic qualities of the town then it may harm tourism. I would need to see the plans. The developers would have to pay huge levies to the council to meet sewage and water supply costs. Traffic problems are not purely related to population and have more to do with building and road layout.
Considering that Kenmare currently has many empty properties and offices, residents wonder why this development is taking place at all.
The developer and his banks must believe that someone will buy their property.
Any useful comments would be appreciated.
You can take one of two approaches. You can fight tooth and nail and either succeed in partially reducing the plans of the developer or fail completely. Or you could take a concilatory approach and try to work with the developer to ensure that the plans enhance rather than detract from the town.
When a town grows it doesn’t have to be a bad thing yet this is the overriding impression from your comments. Extra houses will need extra retail. This would mean more shops for the locals. Office space and more local residents makes the town a more suitable place to locate business and more jobs for locals.
A town can grow in different patterms. You could alllow 300 housing estate houses on half acre plots or 300 one off houses on 1 acre plots or 300 apartments or 300 terraced houses, following the pattern of the centre of the town. The retail may be out of town, increasing traffic, or street level following the traditional pattern. The offices may be modern blocks or housed in buildings that look like the residential areas. The developers’ repsonses on your website seem fairly reasonalble and you may act in your best interests by engaging with them rather than just going for ‘No surrender’
I can understand your fears. Tralee works well in the centre but most of the growth for the past 40 years has been Tallaght style housing estates. The houses are so far apart that driving is the only way for residents to get between each others houses.
@KerryBog2 wrote:
Agreed. Went thro’ 69 to Luton last week. Felt as though I was walking there. No warnings at check in about the lenght of time to get there, you are a fitter person than I if you walk it in 7 minutes! An echo box, nothing to deaden the frantic footfalls of people rushing for their flights. Most developed countries have trolleys at airports, we have them in hospitals.
KB2I timed it the other evening. 4 minutes walk to the edge of pier A, 3.5 minutes walk to get past passport control (no queue at night). 2.5 minutes walk to the arrivals hall (no baggage). 9 minutes in total. It is very unpleasant. There are insufficient seats at the end of the new pier so lots of people are standing. No air conditioning. It’s another reason to fly aer lingus who can often match ryanair on price these days, particularly if you travel at short notice.
How many appeals are are made by An Taisce in a county like Clare per year? Maybe the county chairperson should sign them off rather than allowing a damaging submission like this to be made.
It’s really awful: a giant, badly designed ad for icecreams that covers the entire upper floors of the building. Is there any penalty for doing this?
IRDA’s web site:
http://www.irishruraldwellersassociation.com/Speech from Minister O’CuÃv extolling the virtues of one-off housing
http://www.pobail.ie/en/MinistersSpeeches/2003/October/htmltext,3857,en.htmlGuidelines from Minister Roche advocating isolated rural housing development.
http://www.environ.ie/DOEI/DOEIPol.nsf/0/1829f4edf25b12b380256f5d004dd108/$FILE/Final%20Version%20of%20Rural%20Planning%20Guidelines%2013%205%2005.pdfPromotion of one-off housing development is government policy and supported by a majority of TDs
80% of one-off planning applications are approved.
Angry Rebel wrote:If you keep those who don’t need to be in the city out of it (e.g through traffic) it creates a more pleasant environment for those who do enter the city! ]Ring roads around cities are little used by through traffic. Look at the M50, mostly carrying Dubliners from one part of the city to another. Cork is already bypassed to the South and traffic from most parts of the country heading to South or West Cork has no need to enter the city.Which of Cork’s problems will be solved by a mini-M25? It will literally pave the way for the concrete carpet development of North Cork with World of Bathrooms and the like. Maybe this is heaven. Enjoy your virgins.
@phil wrote:
I also found this whilst looking at the RIAI web-page and thought I might post it, despite being a little bit off the subject
http://www.riai.ie/gallery.html?type=regional&year=2006&item=13
That one looks interesting. If they got 23 houses on 1.4 acres, I wonder why this isn’t happening more. I don’t understand the economics.
I am making the (possibly mistaken) assumption that the larger the urban core, the more life and importance a town will have.
Maybe it’s possible to have a town with no urban area at all, just a collection of housing estates, retail and office parks and industrial estates. Does this exist already in Ireland? I must read that book ‘Edge City’ sometime.
My only criticism of New Urbanism is that it doesn’t go far enough in constricting urban car use.
The article posted by phil is interesting and I’m going to reply to some of the authors’ criticisms:
1. most sites are greenfield rather than urban regeneration
The argument here is that developing greenfield sites is just more sprawl. The counter argument is that 10 times more sprawl results from developing a standard housing estate to house the same number of people.2. just for the affluent
Desirable developments achieve higher market values, so rich people tend to live there. This is just a validation of the success of New Urbanist districts.3. Community is not necessarily a good thing
Too much community is bad. Small townism excludes anyone with unacceptable ideas. Agreed. But what is the author saying here? That New Urbanism will generate too much community with these negative results? In my view, a little community is better than none and urban communities are nowhere near as stifling as rural towns. La Vie du Quartier is never pejorative.4. Prescriptive social engineering
All forms of planning whether zoning for housing estates or one-off houses is prescriptive and effects the interactions of the future residents. Is the author arguing against any planning?5. New Urbanism it isn’t a panacea for a society’s ills
It doesn’t have to be, it just has to be better than the previous plan.5. That it ‘privileges spatial forms over social processes’
I have no idea what this means! Anyone?
