DUBLIN is set to become a skyscraper city, and the sky's the limit on how tall buildings can go.
More than a dozen high-rise buildings are in the pipeline, even though the city council has yet to set a maximum permitted height for buildings across the city.
Homes, hotels and offices will boast panoramic views across the capital when buildings up to 150m tall -- more than two -- and-a-half times the height of Liberty Hall -- shoot up in the coming years.
Only now, with more than a dozen high-rise buildings -- structures more than 50 metres tall -- in the planning process, are city planners seeking to have an upper height limit.
Dublin City Council is in the process of setting down the upper height limits, but permission for some of the biggest building projects ever undertaken here are likely to be granted before the strategy is in place.
Among the projects likely to be adjudicated on by the council before the new limits apply include Sean Dunne's One Berkeley Court development in Dublin 4.
Apartments
This includes a "landmark" building of 37 floors, along with a complete redevelopment of the Jury's/Berkeley Court site which he acquired for €400m.
The cost of developing the site is expected to reach €1bn, and, if approved, the luxury apartments will sell for €1m each.
The so-called "gateway" to the city comprising the U2 Tower (36 storeys) and Point Village (32 storeys) has been approved, with construction under way on the latter project.
Planning permission is also being sought by Treasury Holdings for a new hotel at Spencer Dock, which is set to reach 152 metres -- 35 storeys.
Other projects include Heuston Gate beside Heuston Station, which at 117 metres and 32 floors will be Ireland's tallest building when complete later this year.
It is being built by the Office of Public Works, which could sell it once complete.
"We had been examining the possibility of retaining elements of the site for further state use, (and are) giving consideration to structuring a sale that will maximise value to the State," a spokesman said.
"Given the current market this may not necessarily mean a deal where money is paid up front."
The draft building height strategy -- called Maximising the City's Potential -- set out Grangegorman, Connolly, Tara and Heuston stations and the Docklands as locations where high-rise should be considered.
Higher densities should reduce urban sprawl, and it will be the first time the council has defined what "high rise" is.
A spokesman said the council would take as long as necessary to adopt the right strategy. The public are asked to make submissions up to March 7 next.
"So important is this to us we would ensure a variation of the development plan," said a spokesman.
"Once it's gone through the full public consultation process, An Bord Pleanala must take account of it.
"It will give clear guidelines on where we think the densities and high rise should occur."
Sky's the limit for tall order buildings
Spencer Dock Hotel
This proposed 35-storey hotel is to be developed by Treasury Holdings as part of the landmark National Conference Centre complex on Dublin's North Wall Quay. The public spaces of the hotel will occupy the first five floors.
The remainder comprising hotel rooms, a fitness centre and spa, hotel suites, clubs, lounges, meeting rooms and winter gardens.
One Berkeley Court
The developer behind Mountbrook Homes acquired the Jury's/ Berkeley Court site for a reported €400m, and is set to spend another €1bn developing it -- assuming permission is granted.
The proposal includes a 'landmark' building of 132m, or 37 floors, along with a redevelopment of the site. Residents and local councillors are bitterly opposed to the project, and An Bord Pleanala is likely to have the final word.
U2 Tower
The 36-storey skyscraper being built by the band, the final design of which has been granted planning permission after two architectural competitions.
The first was won by an Irish firm, but the Dublin Docklands Development Authority -- the planning authority in this case -- decided a more intensive development was needed. Sir Norman Foster won the second competition, and legal action by unsuccessful bidders may yet follow.
Point Village Watchtower
Being built by Harry Crosbie, the iconic building will form the 'gateway' into Dublin Port when complete. The watchtower forms part of an €800m scheme, to include a new concert venue, cinema, apartments offices and hotel.
Heuston Gate
Situated on a State site between the Irish Museum of Modern Art and Heuston Station, 'Heuston Gate', at 117m and 32 floors, will be Ireland's tallest building when completed later this year.
A mixed-use scheme of residential, office, cultural and amenity developments, the residential element amounts to 650 high specification, family-sized apartments -- while 'Heuston Gate' will have elevated roadway access to the Phoenix Park and directly into Heuston Station when complete.
Paul Melia
Irish Independent
www.buckplanning.ie
Monday, 4 February 2008
On the brink of collapse
Lester Brown has been warning of climatic catastrophe since the 1970s, and he believes we're running out of time, he tells Brian O'Connell .
The polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rat, oil production is almost at its peak and the question for Lester Brown is can civilisation be saved?
He is not so sure. For the best part of half a century, Brown has been documenting annual health checks on the planet in the 50 or so books on the environment he has authored to date. Since the 1970s, he has been regarded by many as one of the world's foremost environmental thinkers, and his thoughts on topics as diverse as climate change, the future of automobiles or how China will feed itself, populate academic shelves and general libraries the world over.
Brown created something of a stir in 2003 with the publication of Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilisation in Trouble. In it, he outlined his case for a renewable-energy-based, reuse-recycle economy spawning an adaptable transport system. It was time to build a new economy and a new world, he argued.
That was then, and four years later, Brown is back with another Plan B, entitled Mobilising to Save Civilisation, where he outlines his thoughts on how the planet can avert catastrophe. Optimists may want to turn away now.
"It is decision time," says Brown in the book. "Like earlier civilisations that got into environmental trouble, we have to make a choice." Saving civilisation, he argues, is not a spectator sport. "We have reached a point in the deteriorating relationship between us and the earth's natural systems where we all have to become political activists. Every day counts. We all have a stake in civilisation's survival."
You could argue that Brown's eco-anxiety has hit overdrive, yet speaking by phone from Washington (where he founded the Earth Policy Institute think-tank in the 1970s) Brown sounds very much like the environmental pragmatist. In his view, the biggest factor now working against the planet is time.
"There is this call for carbon emissions to be cut by 20 per cent by 2020, or in some quarters by 2050. I believe we don't have that much time. Things are moving so fast now, and it is really only in the last few months that this has become apparent, that I don't think we have ever witnessed anything on this scale before."
PART OF WHAT Brown argues in his new book, which is free to download online, is the potential effect a continued rise in temperature and melting of glaciers will have. For instance, if Greenland were to continue to fade away, then the subsequent seven-metre (23ft) rise in sea level will result in hundreds of millions of human refugees. The Tibetan Glacier, rescinding at a rate of 7 per cent a year, could result in the Ganges becoming a seasonal river, drying up at certain times of the year. The effect on the millions of people reliant on it for food and water would be unthinkable.
And Brown is not alone in his thinking. Last year respected UK environmentalist Mark Lynas outlined similar doomsday scenarios in his book Six Degrees. In it, Lynas illustrated degree-by-degree how large parts of the world will be made uninhabitable by the turn of the century if current trends continue. Ireland and the UK for instance, could expect summers on a par with North Africa by 2050, while flooding in winter will have disastrous effects on both coastlines.
"The book arose from the general sense of apocalypse that is prevalent in some quarters," says Lynas, "and the assumption that it might be just around the corner."
Brown reckons he has the answers. His new Plan B can avert global disaster, but only if governments and individuals sit up and take notice, he says.
Forget about Bali, or any other pan-national agreements, there simply isn't enough time. Given that oil production is close to peaking, the political story for the next decade will be that no country can get more oil unless another country gets less. So, in order for green energies to take the slack, Brown is calling for the type of mobilisation last seen when the US entered the second World War.
"What's required is an extraordinarily huge effort," says Brown. "In the US alone, a million and a half wind turbines need to be built generating three million megawatts of electricity. I don't think the political will is there yet to tackle this in the way it needs to be tackled. Tackling climate change is not going to succeed because of some global agreement, but because individual states start to unilaterally move ahead and take responsibility."
Others disagree though. Mark Lynas says that without global agreements, it will be very difficult to spark the rapid transformation Brown calls for. "Unless you have international agreement, there is the danger that free-riding states (such as the US at the moment) can gain competitive advantage by refusing to price carbon. So the international Bali roadmap process, due to conclude in 2009, is absolutely vital in order to eventually price carbon in all markets and in all countries," says Lynas.
Amid all the doom and gloom, there are some positive signs that certain governments are beginning to get serious about tackling climate change. Brown points to New Zealand and the recent steps taken by Helen Clarke and her government to cut carbon emissions significantly by 2020.
The first step is to increase the renewable share of electricity to 90 per cent, meaning that just 10 per cent of that country's electricity will derive from carbon-based fuels. The government has also outlined plans to cut automotive fuel use in half by 2040, and to plant half a million acres of trees by 2020. It's this type of radical thinking that is needed on a global scale, Brown argues.
SIMILARLY, IN IRELAND, there gave been recent moves, such as building regulations designed to improve energy efficiency by 40 per cent and the proposed incandescent light bulb. Lynas also points to the so-called "Cap and Share" idea, currently being considered by the Irish government. This is where money from auctioned carbon permits is returned to citizens in quarterly cheques.
"So even whilst petrol at the pump would go up in price to reflect carbon limitations," says Lynas, "people would find themselves no worse off, or even much better off if they switched to cycling, bus or rail. I think it is true that we need a radically new approach, such as Brown calls for, but we need to do it within existing institutions and via the market - there is no time to reinvent human civilisation in order to avoid this crisis."
Speaking at the MacGill summer school last July, the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, shared the immediacy of the situation: "Global warming threatens not just our quality of life, but the very survival of this planet and we who live on it. If global warming is allowed to continue unchecked, the sheer scale of potential disruption and destruction of people and the environment is almost beyond comprehension."
The kernel of Brown's plan to avert the crisis is for an 80 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020, a radical advancement on the 20 per cent reduction by 2020 outlined by the EU.
After that, it's a matter of stabilising world populations, restoring the ecosystem, such as fisheries and soils, and thereby preserving the planet for future generations.
"I'm fully convinced that the future of civilisation is at stake," says Brown. "If we look at how many states in the world are beginning to unravel, most clearly in Sudan, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, then you get a sense of where we could be headed. Seventeen of the top 20 failing states have a growth rate of between 2 and 3.5 per cent a year, which is not enough to sustain their growing populations.
"And the move to biofuels is driving up food prices, which leaves the price of grain now linked directly to the price of oil. Unless someone can intervene to restrict the amount of grain converted to fuel for cars, this trend looks set to continue."
Asked if he is more or less optimistic about the chances to avert a global crisis, Brown sounds uncertain. The frustrating aspect for him is that we now have the technology to tackle climate change, unlike decades ago when he first began highlighting the problem.
"The technology is now there to build a new economic system which can sustain progress without damaging the earth's system. It's a matter now of getting people to understand the urgency of the situation and tackling this problem hands-on."
Plan B 3.0: Mobilising to Save Civilisation can be downloaded free at www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/Contents.htm
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
The polar ice caps are melting at an alarming rat, oil production is almost at its peak and the question for Lester Brown is can civilisation be saved?
He is not so sure. For the best part of half a century, Brown has been documenting annual health checks on the planet in the 50 or so books on the environment he has authored to date. Since the 1970s, he has been regarded by many as one of the world's foremost environmental thinkers, and his thoughts on topics as diverse as climate change, the future of automobiles or how China will feed itself, populate academic shelves and general libraries the world over.
Brown created something of a stir in 2003 with the publication of Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilisation in Trouble. In it, he outlined his case for a renewable-energy-based, reuse-recycle economy spawning an adaptable transport system. It was time to build a new economy and a new world, he argued.
That was then, and four years later, Brown is back with another Plan B, entitled Mobilising to Save Civilisation, where he outlines his thoughts on how the planet can avert catastrophe. Optimists may want to turn away now.
"It is decision time," says Brown in the book. "Like earlier civilisations that got into environmental trouble, we have to make a choice." Saving civilisation, he argues, is not a spectator sport. "We have reached a point in the deteriorating relationship between us and the earth's natural systems where we all have to become political activists. Every day counts. We all have a stake in civilisation's survival."
You could argue that Brown's eco-anxiety has hit overdrive, yet speaking by phone from Washington (where he founded the Earth Policy Institute think-tank in the 1970s) Brown sounds very much like the environmental pragmatist. In his view, the biggest factor now working against the planet is time.
"There is this call for carbon emissions to be cut by 20 per cent by 2020, or in some quarters by 2050. I believe we don't have that much time. Things are moving so fast now, and it is really only in the last few months that this has become apparent, that I don't think we have ever witnessed anything on this scale before."
PART OF WHAT Brown argues in his new book, which is free to download online, is the potential effect a continued rise in temperature and melting of glaciers will have. For instance, if Greenland were to continue to fade away, then the subsequent seven-metre (23ft) rise in sea level will result in hundreds of millions of human refugees. The Tibetan Glacier, rescinding at a rate of 7 per cent a year, could result in the Ganges becoming a seasonal river, drying up at certain times of the year. The effect on the millions of people reliant on it for food and water would be unthinkable.
And Brown is not alone in his thinking. Last year respected UK environmentalist Mark Lynas outlined similar doomsday scenarios in his book Six Degrees. In it, Lynas illustrated degree-by-degree how large parts of the world will be made uninhabitable by the turn of the century if current trends continue. Ireland and the UK for instance, could expect summers on a par with North Africa by 2050, while flooding in winter will have disastrous effects on both coastlines.
"The book arose from the general sense of apocalypse that is prevalent in some quarters," says Lynas, "and the assumption that it might be just around the corner."
Brown reckons he has the answers. His new Plan B can avert global disaster, but only if governments and individuals sit up and take notice, he says.
Forget about Bali, or any other pan-national agreements, there simply isn't enough time. Given that oil production is close to peaking, the political story for the next decade will be that no country can get more oil unless another country gets less. So, in order for green energies to take the slack, Brown is calling for the type of mobilisation last seen when the US entered the second World War.
"What's required is an extraordinarily huge effort," says Brown. "In the US alone, a million and a half wind turbines need to be built generating three million megawatts of electricity. I don't think the political will is there yet to tackle this in the way it needs to be tackled. Tackling climate change is not going to succeed because of some global agreement, but because individual states start to unilaterally move ahead and take responsibility."
Others disagree though. Mark Lynas says that without global agreements, it will be very difficult to spark the rapid transformation Brown calls for. "Unless you have international agreement, there is the danger that free-riding states (such as the US at the moment) can gain competitive advantage by refusing to price carbon. So the international Bali roadmap process, due to conclude in 2009, is absolutely vital in order to eventually price carbon in all markets and in all countries," says Lynas.
Amid all the doom and gloom, there are some positive signs that certain governments are beginning to get serious about tackling climate change. Brown points to New Zealand and the recent steps taken by Helen Clarke and her government to cut carbon emissions significantly by 2020.
The first step is to increase the renewable share of electricity to 90 per cent, meaning that just 10 per cent of that country's electricity will derive from carbon-based fuels. The government has also outlined plans to cut automotive fuel use in half by 2040, and to plant half a million acres of trees by 2020. It's this type of radical thinking that is needed on a global scale, Brown argues.
SIMILARLY, IN IRELAND, there gave been recent moves, such as building regulations designed to improve energy efficiency by 40 per cent and the proposed incandescent light bulb. Lynas also points to the so-called "Cap and Share" idea, currently being considered by the Irish government. This is where money from auctioned carbon permits is returned to citizens in quarterly cheques.
"So even whilst petrol at the pump would go up in price to reflect carbon limitations," says Lynas, "people would find themselves no worse off, or even much better off if they switched to cycling, bus or rail. I think it is true that we need a radically new approach, such as Brown calls for, but we need to do it within existing institutions and via the market - there is no time to reinvent human civilisation in order to avoid this crisis."
Speaking at the MacGill summer school last July, the Minister for the Environment, John Gormley, shared the immediacy of the situation: "Global warming threatens not just our quality of life, but the very survival of this planet and we who live on it. If global warming is allowed to continue unchecked, the sheer scale of potential disruption and destruction of people and the environment is almost beyond comprehension."
The kernel of Brown's plan to avert the crisis is for an 80 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020, a radical advancement on the 20 per cent reduction by 2020 outlined by the EU.
After that, it's a matter of stabilising world populations, restoring the ecosystem, such as fisheries and soils, and thereby preserving the planet for future generations.
"I'm fully convinced that the future of civilisation is at stake," says Brown. "If we look at how many states in the world are beginning to unravel, most clearly in Sudan, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, then you get a sense of where we could be headed. Seventeen of the top 20 failing states have a growth rate of between 2 and 3.5 per cent a year, which is not enough to sustain their growing populations.
"And the move to biofuels is driving up food prices, which leaves the price of grain now linked directly to the price of oil. Unless someone can intervene to restrict the amount of grain converted to fuel for cars, this trend looks set to continue."
Asked if he is more or less optimistic about the chances to avert a global crisis, Brown sounds uncertain. The frustrating aspect for him is that we now have the technology to tackle climate change, unlike decades ago when he first began highlighting the problem.
"The technology is now there to build a new economic system which can sustain progress without damaging the earth's system. It's a matter now of getting people to understand the urgency of the situation and tackling this problem hands-on."
Plan B 3.0: Mobilising to Save Civilisation can be downloaded free at www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/Contents.htm
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Vital wetlands at risk of destruction - Minister
Irish wetlands, which provide a home to many plant and animal species, are in danger of destruction because of poor management and inappropriate development, Minister for the Environment John Gormley has said.
He was speaking in Monaghan yesterday at the Wise Use of Wetlands conference, held to coincide with World Wetlands Day.
Ireland's climate and geology made it particularly rich in bogs and other wetland areas, and in addition to providing habitats for wildlife, they are essential to the battle against climate change, Mr Gormley said.
"Wetlands in particular provide us with important environmental services such as flood mitigation, water supply and pollution control. Peatlands also act as carbon sinks, an important service in the battle against increased CO2 emissions."
These resources had been abused in the past, he said. "Many of our most important habitats have been threatened and damaged through poor management and inappropriate development."
Fen sites in Monaghan faced threats from pollution, afforestation, illegal dumping, drainage and invasive species.
The Government was developing a new national biodiversity plan which would tackle these threats, he said.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
He was speaking in Monaghan yesterday at the Wise Use of Wetlands conference, held to coincide with World Wetlands Day.
Ireland's climate and geology made it particularly rich in bogs and other wetland areas, and in addition to providing habitats for wildlife, they are essential to the battle against climate change, Mr Gormley said.
"Wetlands in particular provide us with important environmental services such as flood mitigation, water supply and pollution control. Peatlands also act as carbon sinks, an important service in the battle against increased CO2 emissions."
These resources had been abused in the past, he said. "Many of our most important habitats have been threatened and damaged through poor management and inappropriate development."
Fen sites in Monaghan faced threats from pollution, afforestation, illegal dumping, drainage and invasive species.
The Government was developing a new national biodiversity plan which would tackle these threats, he said.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Brothers eye €40m windfall as council backs down over zoning
The Presentation Brothers religious teaching order is looking at a €40m-plus property windfall after succeeding in a legal action to stop Dun Laoghaire council from zoning land belonging to one of its former schools for sports and recreational use.
The four-acre playing fields at Hudson Road in Glasthule are among the last major potential development sites left in the Dun Laoghaire area and among the last open spaces. Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council last year zoned it for sports and recreational use only.
However, the order challenged the decision and the council has now conceded that it cannot succeed against the legal challenge.
In a letter to councillors last Friday, County Manager Owen Keegan, conceded that the council did not have grounds to insist that the lands should remain for recreational use. It is now likely that they will be sold for apartment development. As it is one of the last sites of its size in the Dun Laoghaire/Sandycove area the four-acre site is expected to fetch at least €10m an acre, as similar development land has already been fetching.
Local Fine Gael councillor Mary Mitchell-O'Connor is headmistress of the Harold National School in Glasthule whose children have used the fields up to now. She said, "Open space is at a premium in Dun Laoghaire and especially round this area. There are 500 children in the Harold and there is very little open space for them.
"We should try and preserve as much green space as we have and I would like to see the County Manager and the Presentation Brothers coming together to discuss this as an issue. I personally hope that this will not be yet another high-rise, high-density development proposal. We have had too many of those in Dun Laoghaire."
There was no comment available from the Presentation Brothers yesterday.
In his letter to the councillors, Mr Keegan said: "As you are probably aware, following the adoption by the council of this Variation, the Trustees of the Presentation Brothers Religious Order initiated judicial review proceedings against the council. Within the last few weeks, the case was remitted to the Commercial Court for hearing. The hearing of the action has been fixed for April 15, 2008."
He said legal advice had been sought and this was: "that the planning ethos and intentions of the council, intended to be expressed in the documentation upon which the decision to vary the Development Plan was made, are not clearly borne out in that documentation; that the Presentation Brothers make a strong case that the procedures adopted by the council are, in the legal sense, infirm; that defending the proceedings would be costly and result in delay and; that the Court would be more likely to quash the decision to adopt the Variation arising from the difficulties, which have been identified".
Mr Keegan added: "In these circumstances and in light of the legal advice given to me, I consider that it is both appropriate and prudent not to defend the proceedings and to allow the council's decision to vary the Development Plan to be quashed."
Around 4,000 apartment and town-houses are currently under construction or in planning in the Dun Laoghaire area, including some 1,300 in the first phase of the Cosgrave Brothers development of Dun Laoghaire Golf Course. Developer Noel Smyth, who is seen locally as one of the likely bidders for the Presentation site, is also involved in proposals for around 400 apartments, including the proposal to build two apartment blocks in the grounds of St Michael's Hospital in Dun Laoghaire.
JIM CUSACK
Irish Independent
www.buckplanning.ie
The four-acre playing fields at Hudson Road in Glasthule are among the last major potential development sites left in the Dun Laoghaire area and among the last open spaces. Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council last year zoned it for sports and recreational use only.
However, the order challenged the decision and the council has now conceded that it cannot succeed against the legal challenge.
In a letter to councillors last Friday, County Manager Owen Keegan, conceded that the council did not have grounds to insist that the lands should remain for recreational use. It is now likely that they will be sold for apartment development. As it is one of the last sites of its size in the Dun Laoghaire/Sandycove area the four-acre site is expected to fetch at least €10m an acre, as similar development land has already been fetching.
Local Fine Gael councillor Mary Mitchell-O'Connor is headmistress of the Harold National School in Glasthule whose children have used the fields up to now. She said, "Open space is at a premium in Dun Laoghaire and especially round this area. There are 500 children in the Harold and there is very little open space for them.
"We should try and preserve as much green space as we have and I would like to see the County Manager and the Presentation Brothers coming together to discuss this as an issue. I personally hope that this will not be yet another high-rise, high-density development proposal. We have had too many of those in Dun Laoghaire."
There was no comment available from the Presentation Brothers yesterday.
In his letter to the councillors, Mr Keegan said: "As you are probably aware, following the adoption by the council of this Variation, the Trustees of the Presentation Brothers Religious Order initiated judicial review proceedings against the council. Within the last few weeks, the case was remitted to the Commercial Court for hearing. The hearing of the action has been fixed for April 15, 2008."
He said legal advice had been sought and this was: "that the planning ethos and intentions of the council, intended to be expressed in the documentation upon which the decision to vary the Development Plan was made, are not clearly borne out in that documentation; that the Presentation Brothers make a strong case that the procedures adopted by the council are, in the legal sense, infirm; that defending the proceedings would be costly and result in delay and; that the Court would be more likely to quash the decision to adopt the Variation arising from the difficulties, which have been identified".
Mr Keegan added: "In these circumstances and in light of the legal advice given to me, I consider that it is both appropriate and prudent not to defend the proceedings and to allow the council's decision to vary the Development Plan to be quashed."
Around 4,000 apartment and town-houses are currently under construction or in planning in the Dun Laoghaire area, including some 1,300 in the first phase of the Cosgrave Brothers development of Dun Laoghaire Golf Course. Developer Noel Smyth, who is seen locally as one of the likely bidders for the Presentation site, is also involved in proposals for around 400 apartments, including the proposal to build two apartment blocks in the grounds of St Michael's Hospital in Dun Laoghaire.
JIM CUSACK
Irish Independent
www.buckplanning.ie
Planning board rejects park-and-ride facility
Dublin's first dedicated park-and-ride facility for buses, which would have taken commuters from Leixlip to the city centre in less than half the time of a car, has been denied planning permission by An Board Pleanála.
South Dublin County Council intended to run express bus services every 10 minutes, at peak time, from a park-and-ride facility at Lucan Demesne, just off the N4 between the Leixlip and Lucan bypass roads.
The 15km journey along the N4 to O'Connell Street could have taken less than 30 minutes using dedicated bus lanes and taken up to 1,500 commuters off the road each day, the council said.
The council applied to the planning board in December 2006 to build the facility on a 4.49 hectare (11 acre) site adjacent to the Liffey Valley. It was to be built in two phases, the first with 525 standard parking spaces and 10 disabled parking space and the second with 501 standard spaces and 10 disabled spaces. Bicycle parking would also be provided.
An oral hearing on the application was held last July and the inspector who conducted the hearing, Padraig Ó Gliasain, recommended that the project receive permission. However, the board rejected this recommendation and refused the project.
In its report the board said the council had zoned the land as a high amenity area in its own development plan. The plan also contained a policy to develop the lands as part of a Liffey Valley National Park.
"It is considered that the proposed use of these lands as a park-and-ride facility would materially contravene the zoning objective for these lands and would conflict with the aforesaid policies in relation to the preservation of the Liffey Valley and the achievement of a National Park," the board said.
County manager Joe Horan said he was disappointed by the board's decision.
"I fully accept the board's right to make that decision, but we felt we had chosen a discreet location, and the best possible location in terms of motorists exiting from the road."
The council was still studying the board's decision, but would shortly consider whether to look for a new site or seek an alteration to the development plan, Mr Horan said. It is understood that the other Dublin local authorities intended to monitor its progress with a view to setting up their own services.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
South Dublin County Council intended to run express bus services every 10 minutes, at peak time, from a park-and-ride facility at Lucan Demesne, just off the N4 between the Leixlip and Lucan bypass roads.
The 15km journey along the N4 to O'Connell Street could have taken less than 30 minutes using dedicated bus lanes and taken up to 1,500 commuters off the road each day, the council said.
The council applied to the planning board in December 2006 to build the facility on a 4.49 hectare (11 acre) site adjacent to the Liffey Valley. It was to be built in two phases, the first with 525 standard parking spaces and 10 disabled parking space and the second with 501 standard spaces and 10 disabled spaces. Bicycle parking would also be provided.
An oral hearing on the application was held last July and the inspector who conducted the hearing, Padraig Ó Gliasain, recommended that the project receive permission. However, the board rejected this recommendation and refused the project.
In its report the board said the council had zoned the land as a high amenity area in its own development plan. The plan also contained a policy to develop the lands as part of a Liffey Valley National Park.
"It is considered that the proposed use of these lands as a park-and-ride facility would materially contravene the zoning objective for these lands and would conflict with the aforesaid policies in relation to the preservation of the Liffey Valley and the achievement of a National Park," the board said.
County manager Joe Horan said he was disappointed by the board's decision.
"I fully accept the board's right to make that decision, but we felt we had chosen a discreet location, and the best possible location in terms of motorists exiting from the road."
The council was still studying the board's decision, but would shortly consider whether to look for a new site or seek an alteration to the development plan, Mr Horan said. It is understood that the other Dublin local authorities intended to monitor its progress with a view to setting up their own services.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Dublin airport expansion
Madam, - Your Editorial of February 1st highlighted Dublin's traffic woes, while An Irishman's Diary chided Dublin Airport's propaganda for suggesting that its new Terminal 2 and Pier D would be nicely under-populated. The facts are very different.
Dublin Airport plans to expand its capacity threefold to 60 million passengers a year, with horrendous implications for Dublin traffic. The proposed Metro will handle only a fraction of the extra numbers while the rest will just add catastrophically to the woes you mention in your Editorial.
On August 30th last year another Editorial said a second airport, further away from the city, should have been considered. It called on the Government to ensure that the very expensive new runway and new terminal projects were subjected to proper scrutiny to ensure that what was being planned is in the public interest.
That has still not happened. - Yours, etc,
MATTHEW HARLEY, Portmarnock Community Association, Portmarnock, Co Dublin.
The Irish Times
Dublin Airport plans to expand its capacity threefold to 60 million passengers a year, with horrendous implications for Dublin traffic. The proposed Metro will handle only a fraction of the extra numbers while the rest will just add catastrophically to the woes you mention in your Editorial.
On August 30th last year another Editorial said a second airport, further away from the city, should have been considered. It called on the Government to ensure that the very expensive new runway and new terminal projects were subjected to proper scrutiny to ensure that what was being planned is in the public interest.
That has still not happened. - Yours, etc,
MATTHEW HARLEY, Portmarnock Community Association, Portmarnock, Co Dublin.
The Irish Times
Residents object to gas power station
Residents, schools and community organisations in Claremorris, Co Mayo have pledged to fight plans to build a €135 million gas turbine power station.
Mayo County Council is set to adjudicate on the application by Mountside Properties Ltd to build the station, which would include two 20m stacks. The proposed location, about a kilometre from the town centre, is on a site owned by Mayo County Council.
A recent protest meeting attracted about 500 people. Among the objectors are Claremorris Chamber of Commerce, which says the plant contravenes the local development plan.
Mountside Properties Ltd has argued that the plant would contribute to the security of electricity supply.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Mayo County Council is set to adjudicate on the application by Mountside Properties Ltd to build the station, which would include two 20m stacks. The proposed location, about a kilometre from the town centre, is on a site owned by Mayo County Council.
A recent protest meeting attracted about 500 people. Among the objectors are Claremorris Chamber of Commerce, which says the plant contravenes the local development plan.
Mountside Properties Ltd has argued that the plant would contribute to the security of electricity supply.
The Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
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