Ian O'Riordan: Nowhere to play and the price which comes with it

They’re building hundreds of apartments on the grass hockey field that once upon a time belonged to Notre Dame secondary school in Churchtown, Dublin. It was the only properly level playing field between the old Dundrum shopping centre and Milltown Golf Club, and one of the side entrances was always left open. We would cut through from Weston Park and the new houses built at the back of us at Finsbury Park, and, depending on the time of the year, that field could be staging the World Cup finals or the Olympics. Sometimes twice in the one summer. There was no closing time, and the nuns didn’t seem to mind once we left before dark and kept the noise down. When I was 16 and getting bored my dad took me and my older brother for a run down to that hockey field, waiting until after dusk so my mates didn’t slag me off. He told us to keep our backs straight and lift our knees a little higher and that we might be okay at it, then one night we told him to run on home and we’d follow him after a few more laps.

Read the full article @ Irish Times

Permission refused for Dundrum complex

A COMPANY half-owned by heavily-indebted property developer Bernard McNamara has been refused planning permission by An Bord Pleanála to build a cinema complex and bowling alley in Dundrum, Co Dublin.

Cicol Ltd, which Mr McNamara jointly owns with property investor brothers Ciarán and Colum Butler, had appealed against Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council’s decision to reject their plans to develop a site known as Dudley’s Field.

The 3.4-acre field, which adjoins the Airfield Estate urban farm, had been purchased by Cicol in 2005 for more than €16 million from the Airfield Trust, which runs the farm, and successive plans to develop it were opposed by the Friends of Airfield group.

The group, which is dedicated to “cherishing a piece of the countryside in the middle of Dundrum”, has welcomed the board’s rejection of the proposed bowling alley and cinema complex on the grounds they would “seriously injure the amenities of the area”.

This is the second such refusal by the appeals board for the development of Dudley’s Field, which is zoned for “Objective F: open space and recreational amenities”. The earlier decision by the board in 2007 was unsuccessfully challenged by Cicol in the High Court.

Delivering judgment in May 2008, Ms Justice Irvine said the development proposed was far in excess of what an intelligent person would interpret as being permitted under the “F” zoning objective. She also referred to a separate local objective to protect Airfield Estate.

Friends of Airfield, in their submission on the latest plan, said they believed it would “entail a massive change of use for the area concerned and have significant negative impacts on the adjoining Airfield Estate, as well as surrounding residential areas”.

The board, in its ruling on Cicol’s appeal, said it did not agree with the view of the inspector who dealt with the case that a cinema would come within the category of uses permitted or open for consideration as a “cultural building” in the zoning context.

Irish Times

www.buckplanning.ie

Flats from hell the city council forgot

RESIDENTS in a dilapidated flat complex in south Dublin, who say they are living in "dangerous" conditions, have called on Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to progress the redevelopment process on their homes, which stopped shortly after it began two years ago.

Tenants living in the Rosemount Court flats in Dundrum are urging the local authority to clarify its position on the redevelopment scheme and say the council has refused to inform them whether or not it plans to continue the stalled process.

Marese Hegarty, who has lived in the flats since 2004 and is also a member of the Rosemount Redevelopment Steering Group, said the local authority has listed the complex as an urgent priority for redevelopment since 1996.

Describing the conditions at Rosemount, she said: "There is no central heating, so if you remember the really bad cold spell in January, it was literally freezing. According to EU legislation we should have had central heating last year and we were told the money was there for it, but nothing has happened.

"The window frames are totally rotten... In one case a window fell out and crashed to the ground right on the very spot where a resident put his child into his car only minutes earlier.

"One resident was constantly ill and the doctor could not establish why and then he found out that there was this crack in the wall in the flat and the fumes from her chimney were coming through. She had a completely lowered immune system.

"We are only 10 minutes' walk from Dundrum Town Centre [shopping complex]. If this place was visible from the main streets in Dundrum, there is no way the council would have been able to leave people living in these conditions."

Hegarty added that the complex, which was built in the early 1970s, has no fire escapes.

In 2007, the council presented the residents with four options for the redevelopment. Residents then chose their preferred proposal. But Hegarty said the scheme stalled just months after Dun Laoghaire Rathdown officially began the process.

"Two years ago we were given a booklet with the redevelopment options on it. There was a timeframe to go with the chosen option and so far the first part of that process, which the booklet said would take only three to six months, has not been completed."

Alison Conneely, a community development worker with the Southside Partnership, said that in July, a health and safety officer from the HSE who took a brief tour of the complex described the conditions at Rosemount as "extremely dangerous".

A spokeswoman for the council said it is currently awaiting approval from the Department of the Environment to proceed with the redevelopment scheme.

"It was pointed out to the residents at the time [in 2007] that any timeframes given could only be used as a general guideline, as approval is required at various stages of the process before any works can begin," she added.

However, a spokesman for the Department of the Environment said it asked the council to submit further details on all four of the housing options for the scheme but he said they failed to do this.

"Ultimately it is a matter for Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council to make and progress the proposal which must be developed in accordance with the policy framework set out in [the policy document] 'Delivering Homes, Sustaining Communities'."

Snday Tribune

www.buckplanning.ie

Second phase of Dundrum centre to be appealed

A PLAN to develop the second phase of a town centre in south Dublin is to be appealed to An Bord Pleanála.

Phase two of the Dundrum Town Centre was given the go-ahead by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council last month.

The plan, on a 4.4 hectare site including the original Dundrum shopping centre on Main Street, involves the demolition of properties on Glenville Terrace and Main Street and the development of retail, residential, restaurants, a creche, medical centre, library and a nine-storey, 96-bedroom hotel.

Developers Lendridge Ltd had said they hoped to begin working on the new centre by the end of this year. However, the economic downturn may delay that.

Local residents’ organisation, the Dundrum Interest Group, which represents over 1,000 households, has engaged a town planner to lodge their appeal, which must reach the planning board by today.

Spokesman for the group Stephen O’Shea said residents were concerned about the size and scale of the project, which was substantially bigger than that originally agreed with residents and approved by the council.

They also view the scope of the development as limited, the overall height too great with car park space insufficient.

Residents were not opposed to the development, he said, but had wanted something that had more community facilities and would give the area back its village feel, he said.

“The hotel will be the same height as the Luas bridge,” Mr O’Shea said.

“It’s like the Titanic turning up; it’s completely out of place.”

The library offered by the developers as part of a “planning sweetener” was not suitable in isolation and would function better in a community centre than in a shopping centre, he said.

And the park mentioned in the plan already existed and was being taken over by the developer. Residents would like to see art galleries and museums included instead of just retail outlets Mr O’Shea said.

Irish Times

www.buckplanning.ie

Dublin shopping centre to go ahead despite downturn

THE DEVELOPERS behind a major shopping centre in South Dublin have said they will go ahead with the second phase of their complex despite the economic downturn.

A spokesman for Lenridge Properties Ltd, the company behind Dundrum town centre's phase two development, said they hope to begin work on the project in late 2009.

A planning application for phase two is currently before Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. It was lodged last February and has since been the subject of requests for further information and clarifications from council planners as well as objections from locals. A previous application to develop the site was given planning permission by An Bord Pleanála in 2007, but was shelved by the developers.

The current plan, on the site of the original Dundrum shopping centre on Main Street, includes the demolition of properties on Glenville Terrace and Main Street and the development of retail, restaurants, a creche, medical centre and a library, all on four storeys, as well as a nine-storey, 96-bedroom hotel.

A spokesman for Lenridge Properties Ltd said the company was very confident the development would go ahead.

He said they would be providing clarification to the council early in the new year on issues they had raised and were anticipating the application would be appealed to Bord Pleanála in whatever form it was granted.

"Bord Pleanála is likely to take four to six months to process the application, so we would be looking at beginning development in autumn 2009 at the earliest," he said.

He said he was also confident the proposed hotel would do very well, since there were none in the area.

He said trading at the existing Dundrum town centre was strong despite the economic downturn and there was a demand for extra retail in the area.

The spokesman said they were in discussion with a number of interested parties about taking up tenancies at the development.

"The project is definitely going ahead, there is no question about it," he said.

Local Labour Councillor Aidan Culhane said the council had plans to upgrade Main Street radically, which had become very rundown, but there was no point in spending millions on the work if the area was going to become a building site.

He said the developers needed to resolve the issues raised by planners quickly, which included concerns over adequate parking and balance of uses, so that the project could go ahead.

Irish Times

www.buckplanning.ie

Rail agency to repair disused station after DLR Co. Co. issues warning notice

THE OLD railway station in Dundrum, Co Dublin, is to be repaired by the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) on foot of a warning notice by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council over its dilapidated condition.

The mid-19th century building, which is a protected structure, stands alongside the Sandyford Luas line at its Dundrum stop and was intended for conversion into a cafe when the line opened in 2004.

Instead, it was left vacant and has since been vandalised and partly destroyed by fire last October.

The warning notice issued in February referred to the building "continuing to be endangered" and left "open to the elements".

Michael Sheedy, the RPA's light rail director, told An Taisce in May that tender documentation was being prepared for the renovation of the station's roof, which dates from 1859.

"In order to prevent any recurrence of fire damage, it is intended to temporarily block up the openings so as to deny access to vandals," he said in a letter to An Taisce's South County Dublin Association.

"RPA is currently involved in negotiations to dispose of its interest in the property. Such disposal will take full cognisance of the need to restore and preserve this protected structure," Mr Sheedy wrote.

But Dundrum resident Vivien Hood said people living there "will not be satisfied with a reinstatement of the roof", adding that "the excuse of negotiations is no reason for not maintaining the building".

She complained to the county council in June that nothing had been done to force the RPA to take steps to preserve the railway station, saying the full rigours of the law should be applied.

An RPA spokesman said the intention in 2004 was that it would become a coffee shop, to cater for the 5,000 people who use the Dundrum Luas stop every day. But this did not go ahead, he added.

"We would have been much happier if it had been sold, but it wasn't.

"Because it's a listed building, repairing it would need a conservation architect and the intention is that these works would start in October."

The spokesman agreed that the Luas project team had prepared an urban framework plan in the late 1990s to integrate the station and base of the Dargan suspension bridge with Dundrum's Main Street. However, this depended on the local authority and private developers.

"All we could do was to present a vision, but it didn't happen in Dundrum because there wasn't sufficient interest."

The spokesman was at a loss to explain why, given that the property market was so buoyant in 2004.

He said it was probably unrealistic for outlets on the Luas lines to be seen as "cash cows".

A snack bar attached to an ESB sub-station at the Smithfield stop on the Tallaght Luas line had failed, but he pointed out that a convenience store at the Beechwood stop on the Sandyford Luas line was thriving.

There have also been mixed results in terms of reinstating damage done to the urban fabric by the construction of Luas, where buildings had to be demolished to make way for the light rail track.

Although a new sheltered housing scheme has reinstated the corner of James's Street and Bow Lane, there is still an unsightly derelict site on Arran Quay Terrace, where a terrace of houses was demolished.

Located between Smithfield and Queen Street, this narrow site was sold by the RPA last year to developer Liam Carroll, following a public tender, for what the spokesman described as a good market price.

The Irish Times

www.buckplanning.ie

Rail agency to repair disused station after DLR Co. Co. issues warning notice

THE OLD railway station in Dundrum, Co Dublin, is to be repaired by the Railway Procurement Agency (RPA) on foot of a warning notice by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council over its dilapidated condition.

The mid-19th century building, which is a protected structure, stands alongside the Sandyford Luas line at its Dundrum stop and was intended for conversion into a cafe when the line opened in 2004.

Instead, it was left vacant and has since been vandalised and partly destroyed by fire last October.

The warning notice issued in February referred to the building "continuing to be endangered" and left "open to the elements".

Michael Sheedy, the RPA's light rail director, told An Taisce in May that tender documentation was being prepared for the renovation of the station's roof, which dates from 1859.

"In order to prevent any recurrence of fire damage, it is intended to temporarily block up the openings so as to deny access to vandals," he said in a letter to An Taisce's South County Dublin Association.

"RPA is currently involved in negotiations to dispose of its interest in the property. Such disposal will take full cognisance of the need to restore and preserve this protected structure," Mr Sheedy wrote.

But Dundrum resident Vivien Hood said people living there "will not be satisfied with a reinstatement of the roof", adding that "the excuse of negotiations is no reason for not maintaining the building".

She complained to the county council in June that nothing had been done to force the RPA to take steps to preserve the railway station, saying the full rigours of the law should be applied.

An RPA spokesman said the intention in 2004 was that it would become a coffee shop, to cater for the 5,000 people who use the Dundrum Luas stop every day. But this did not go ahead, he added.

"We would have been much happier if it had been sold, but it wasn't.

"Because it's a listed building, repairing it would need a conservation architect and the intention is that these works would start in October."

The spokesman agreed that the Luas project team had prepared an urban framework plan in the late 1990s to integrate the station and base of the Dargan suspension bridge with Dundrum's Main Street. However, this depended on the local authority and private developers.

"All we could do was to present a vision, but it didn't happen in Dundrum because there wasn't sufficient interest."

The spokesman was at a loss to explain why, given that the property market was so buoyant in 2004.

He said it was probably unrealistic for outlets on the Luas lines to be seen as "cash cows".

A snack bar attached to an ESB sub-station at the Smithfield stop on the Tallaght Luas line had failed, but he pointed out that a convenience store at the Beechwood stop on the Sandyford Luas line was thriving.

There have also been mixed results in terms of reinstating damage done to the urban fabric by the construction of Luas, where buildings had to be demolished to make way for the light rail track.

Although a new sheltered housing scheme has reinstated the corner of James's Street and Bow Lane, there is still an unsightly derelict site on Arran Quay Terrace, where a terrace of houses was demolished.

Located between Smithfield and Queen Street, this narrow site was sold by the RPA last year to developer Liam Carroll, following a public tender, for what the spokesman described as a good market price.

The Irish Times

www.buckplanning.ie