THE HIGH Court has reserved judgment on an action by singer Van Morrison’s wife aimed at safeguarding the privacy of the couple’s home in Dalkey, Co Dublin.
Mr Justice Michael Hanna said he hoped to deliver judgment as soon as possible, but indicated he might be unable to do so until late this year.
An Bord Pleanála had stated it did not regard removal of trees as a development matter. “We do not accept there has been significant unauthorised removal of trees,” said Esmonde Keane SC, for Mary and Desmond Kavanagh, whose house neighbours the singer’s.
The judge yesterday heard final legal submissions in the six-day case in which Michelle Morrison is seeking leave to bring a judicial review challenge to a permission compliance notice issued by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council to the Kavanaghs for redevelopment of their home, Mount Alverno, at Sorrento Road, Dalkey.
At the end of legal submissions yesterday, lawyers for both sides disputed a number of claims, including whether the Kavanagh home – described by Eamon Galligan SC, for Ms Morrison, as a 7,500sq ft “Celtic-tiger” type dwelling – was actually that size. Mr Galligan said it was 630sq m (6,778 sq ft), and while this was not exactly 7,500 sq ft, it was approximately that figure.
Mr Keane disputed Mr Galligan’s claims that the removal of certain trees at the Mount Alverno property amounted to significant unauthorised development.
Ms Morrison, who lives in neighbouring Kilross House, claims the permission is invalid, and that the council failed to protect her privacy through allowing the Kavanaghs to remove trees which she claims would have provided her home with maximum screening.
She has claimed that a proposal by her neighbours to plant shrubs instead would not have the same effect.
Ms Morrison claims the work at Mount Alverno has led to a loss of privacy at her home and she has no choice but to bring court proceedings because of the alleged failure of the planning authority.
She claims the council accepted compliance at a time when there were unauthorised works on the entrance to Mount Alverno, even though this was later rectified by another planning permission.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Sunday, 20 June 2010
Gormley to announce major changes to planning legislation
MAJOR NEW planning legislation to be published today will dramatically clamp down on retentions for large developments and on the rampant expansion of quarries.
The Planning Bill 2010 will be published by Minister for the Environment John Gormley and is partly designed to target problems that persistently cropped up during the property boom which existing planning legislation was not equipped to deal with.
On the retention issue, the Bill will require that it will no longer be possible for planning permission to be granted for retention of developments built without planning permission, where the development would have required an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
The effect of this is that a major development that required an EIA and was built without planning permission must be demolished.
There are also new retention powers in relation to illegal developments on certain European-designated wildlife sites.
In the quarry sector, the new Bill will introduce a strictly time-limited sunset provision which will allow quarries with a generally compliant planning record to apply to An Bord Pleanála to regularise their activities through a new “substitute consent” process.
There will also be a new requirement for local authorities to prepare a complete inventory of all quarries in their jurisdiction. Quarries that never had planning permission or failed to register under S.261 of the Planning Act 2000 will not qualify for substitute consent.
Improved enforcement provisions in the Bill will require local authorities to immediately take enforcement proceedings against quarries which are refused substitute consent or are otherwise non-compliant.
There are also new provisions for the protection and strengthening of public rights of way.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
The Planning Bill 2010 will be published by Minister for the Environment John Gormley and is partly designed to target problems that persistently cropped up during the property boom which existing planning legislation was not equipped to deal with.
On the retention issue, the Bill will require that it will no longer be possible for planning permission to be granted for retention of developments built without planning permission, where the development would have required an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
The effect of this is that a major development that required an EIA and was built without planning permission must be demolished.
There are also new retention powers in relation to illegal developments on certain European-designated wildlife sites.
In the quarry sector, the new Bill will introduce a strictly time-limited sunset provision which will allow quarries with a generally compliant planning record to apply to An Bord Pleanála to regularise their activities through a new “substitute consent” process.
There will also be a new requirement for local authorities to prepare a complete inventory of all quarries in their jurisdiction. Quarries that never had planning permission or failed to register under S.261 of the Planning Act 2000 will not qualify for substitute consent.
Improved enforcement provisions in the Bill will require local authorities to immediately take enforcement proceedings against quarries which are refused substitute consent or are otherwise non-compliant.
There are also new provisions for the protection and strengthening of public rights of way.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Gormley to announce major changes to planning legislation
MAJOR NEW planning legislation to be published today will dramatically clamp down on retentions for large developments and on the rampant expansion of quarries.
The Planning Bill 2010 will be published by Minister for the Environment John Gormley and is partly designed to target problems that persistently cropped up during the property boom which existing planning legislation was not equipped to deal with.
On the retention issue, the Bill will require that it will no longer be possible for planning permission to be granted for retention of developments built without planning permission, where the development would have required an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
The effect of this is that a major development that required an EIA and was built without planning permission must be demolished.
There are also new retention powers in relation to illegal developments on certain European-designated wildlife sites.
In the quarry sector, the new Bill will introduce a strictly time-limited sunset provision which will allow quarries with a generally compliant planning record to apply to An Bord Pleanála to regularise their activities through a new “substitute consent” process.
There will also be a new requirement for local authorities to prepare a complete inventory of all quarries in their jurisdiction. Quarries that never had planning permission or failed to register under S.261 of the Planning Act 2000 will not qualify for substitute consent.
Improved enforcement provisions in the Bill will require local authorities to immediately take enforcement proceedings against quarries which are refused substitute consent or are otherwise non-compliant.
There are also new provisions for the protection and strengthening of public rights of way.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
The Planning Bill 2010 will be published by Minister for the Environment John Gormley and is partly designed to target problems that persistently cropped up during the property boom which existing planning legislation was not equipped to deal with.
On the retention issue, the Bill will require that it will no longer be possible for planning permission to be granted for retention of developments built without planning permission, where the development would have required an environmental impact assessment (EIA).
The effect of this is that a major development that required an EIA and was built without planning permission must be demolished.
There are also new retention powers in relation to illegal developments on certain European-designated wildlife sites.
In the quarry sector, the new Bill will introduce a strictly time-limited sunset provision which will allow quarries with a generally compliant planning record to apply to An Bord Pleanála to regularise their activities through a new “substitute consent” process.
There will also be a new requirement for local authorities to prepare a complete inventory of all quarries in their jurisdiction. Quarries that never had planning permission or failed to register under S.261 of the Planning Act 2000 will not qualify for substitute consent.
Improved enforcement provisions in the Bill will require local authorities to immediately take enforcement proceedings against quarries which are refused substitute consent or are otherwise non-compliant.
There are also new provisions for the protection and strengthening of public rights of way.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Port of Cork selects site for container terminal
THE PORT of Cork yesterday announced that it had selected a site at Ringaskiddy in Cork harbour as the most suitable location for the development of its container traffic business
This followed a review of its long-term development plan.
According to Port of Cork chairman Dermot O’Mahoney a site adjacent to the existing ferry terminal at Ringaskiddy and already owned by the port was deemed the most suitable location for container traffic business, which is currently based at Tivoli further up Cork harbour.
The identification of the Ringaskiddy site comes on foot of a review of the port’s strategic development plan after An Bord Pleanála refused permission to the Port of Cork for the development of a container traffic terminal at another part of Ringaskiddy.
The Port of Cork had applied to the board under the Strategic Infrastructure Act for permission to develop the new terminal on a 37-hectare site at Oysterbank in Ringaskiddy in the lower harbour to replace the existing Tivoli terminal
However, following a 15-day-long oral hearing, the board ruled against the proposal in June 2008, arguing that the Ringaskiddy site was not adequately served by a road network capable of taking the extra traffic that would be generated by the container traffic business.
It was unclear yesterday how the Port of Cork proposed to address the issue of the road network in its latest proposal, which also involves the location of bulk operations at the deep-water berth in Ringaskiddy.
The review also recommended the development of a bulk and general cargo site at the former IFI plant at Marino Point near Cobh on the other side of the harbour and pointed out that if acquired, the Marino Point site also had the potential to accommodate bulk liquids trade.
Mr O’Mahoney said that the review had involved consultation with stakeholders around Cork harbour and it took account of tourism, environmental, infrastructural and leisure and amenity concerns before reaching its recommendations.
A total of 13 potential port sites around Cork harbour had been identified but this was narrowed down to a shortlist of five, from which the locations at Ringaskiddy ferry terminal, the deep water berth and the Marino Point site had been identified for different cargo types.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
This followed a review of its long-term development plan.
According to Port of Cork chairman Dermot O’Mahoney a site adjacent to the existing ferry terminal at Ringaskiddy and already owned by the port was deemed the most suitable location for container traffic business, which is currently based at Tivoli further up Cork harbour.
The identification of the Ringaskiddy site comes on foot of a review of the port’s strategic development plan after An Bord Pleanála refused permission to the Port of Cork for the development of a container traffic terminal at another part of Ringaskiddy.
The Port of Cork had applied to the board under the Strategic Infrastructure Act for permission to develop the new terminal on a 37-hectare site at Oysterbank in Ringaskiddy in the lower harbour to replace the existing Tivoli terminal
However, following a 15-day-long oral hearing, the board ruled against the proposal in June 2008, arguing that the Ringaskiddy site was not adequately served by a road network capable of taking the extra traffic that would be generated by the container traffic business.
It was unclear yesterday how the Port of Cork proposed to address the issue of the road network in its latest proposal, which also involves the location of bulk operations at the deep-water berth in Ringaskiddy.
The review also recommended the development of a bulk and general cargo site at the former IFI plant at Marino Point near Cobh on the other side of the harbour and pointed out that if acquired, the Marino Point site also had the potential to accommodate bulk liquids trade.
Mr O’Mahoney said that the review had involved consultation with stakeholders around Cork harbour and it took account of tourism, environmental, infrastructural and leisure and amenity concerns before reaching its recommendations.
A total of 13 potential port sites around Cork harbour had been identified but this was narrowed down to a shortlist of five, from which the locations at Ringaskiddy ferry terminal, the deep water berth and the Marino Point site had been identified for different cargo types.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Return to Commuterland
In 2003 FRANK McDONALD and KATHY SHERIDAN wrote an award-winning series of articles about the areas of Leinster colonised by commuters during the boom. Revisiting, they find that much has changed and that - despite all the haphazard planning and half-buit houses - many of those who moved now love their new home
Ghost estates, negative equity and soul-sapping commutes are the legacy of our planning-free property bubble. Cleaning up the zoning mess won't be easy, writes FRANK McDONALD , Environment Editor
The mantra of the boom years might well have been “Build it and they will come.” And for 10 years or more it worked. But the frenzy of construction was bound to come to an end, leaving Ireland littered with incongruous developments – as well as tens of thousands of vacant houses in ghost estates.
In 2003, when we first took a long look at the commuter counties, it was evident that much of this unplanned growth had been fuelled by Dubliners fleeing exorbitant property prices. Getting their hands on relatively affordable houses, even in places they had barely heard of, seemed worth the commute.
The trend of Dublin leapfrogging into Leinster and even, with Cavan and Monaghan, into Ulster ran counter to all planning policies, but this was simply ignored. The complacent view at the time was that the growth of Commuterland would tail off when the houses “out there” lost their value, which they now have.
It was in many ways a plan-free zone. Sure, there were plans aplenty – at local, county, regional and national level. But none of them really meant anything, as council after council indulged in an orgy of rezoning so that landowners could cash in on development values and every county in Leinster and beyond could grab a share of Dublin’s growth.
Local area plans intended to provide orderly frameworks for development were often subverted by councillors and used as vehicles to satisfy the greed of farmers, speculators and developers. And regional planning guidelines that were meant to take a broader view turned out to be paper tigers that could safely be ignored locally.
In 2002 the independent Kildare councillor Tony McEvoy and Michael Smith, then chairman of An Taisce, sought a judicial review of the Meath county plan. The High Court upheld it despite evidence that it didn’t comply with the Greater Dublin strategic planning guidelines and that rezoning decisions were influenced by lobbying from landowners. This ruling by Mr Justice John Quirke exposed the guidelines as meaningless: all the councillors needed to do was to “have regard to” them, which could involve merely giving the document a sideways glance. There was no legal requirement on councillors in Meath, or anywhere else, to comply with regional planning guidelines.
The High Court decision opened the floodgates, with councillors rezoning land to beat the band – more often than not against all planning advice. Field after field on the edge of a town or village was turned into gold, and not a finger was lifted by successive ministers for the environment until Dick Roche quashed the Laois county plan in 2006.
Four years earlier Martin Cullen had declined to use the 2000 Planning Act to rein in councillors in Gorey after they zoned enough land for development to cater for up to 10 times its population.
Asked by The Irish Times in 2003 if this was not in complete defiance of public policy, Cullen said: “Yes it is, in the very narrow purist sense. But it’s not in the context of catering for what has happened in Ireland in the last few years. This massive bubble of young people came through, and where the hell were we going to put them?”
They were “making choices” to live “down the country a bit” and commute to Dublin. “The gamble is that as we develop further on, this will change.”
Of course, it didn’t change. A whole new Commuterland opened up, in some cases encouraged by tax incentives; much of the housing explosion in Longford, for example, happened because the whole county was covered by former finance minister Charlie McCreevy’s misguided Upper Shannon Rural Renewal Scheme.
“The real villain was McCreevy’s decision to go with it, giving strong incentives for investors,” one senior planner said. “All the damage is the result of that. An interdepartmental group was put together to look at the impacts of the scheme, just two years after it was introduced in 1999, and recommended that it should be stopped.”
Its unforeseen consequences were noted by Carl O’Brien of The Irish Times in December 2008 when he visited Battery Court, “Longford’s most prestigious address”, and found about half of the 100 or so houses built and work on the rest abandoned. With no signs of life, it was “eerily quiet, almost like a post-apocalyptic scene from a science-fiction movie”.
There are scenes like this almost everywhere now, as property prices collapse – particularly in Commuterland – and developers go bust, with their unsustainable bank loans going into Nama. Empty houses, shops, retail parks and shopping centres are all grim evidence of how the boom was so grotesquely mismanaged. Few brakes were applied. In some cases the Department of the Environment withheld funding for water and sewerage schemes where land was zoned against planning advice. In others An Bord Pleanála simply refused planning permission where the zoning went against sustainable development.
But these were exceptions in a rip-roaring era that left us with thousands of hectares of zoned land that’s not developed. In Commuterland Laois is tops, with 1,678 hectares, followed by Meath (1,652), Wexford (1,382), Cavan (1,161), Kildare (1,147), Offaly (1,044), Westmeath (977), Louth (948), Longford (910), Wicklow (714) and Carlow (408). “Meath has six or seven times what it needs,” one planning source said. “But it’s a much deeper problem in the BMW [Border, Midlands and West] region, particularly in Longford, Roscommon, Leitrim and Sligo.”
The Department of the Environment is surveying every county, trying to “profile the status” of unfinished estates in terms of the number of houses completed, still vacant or at various stages of construction before the builders walked away. Based on this, the department will formulate a policy response. It is also planning a manual for local authorities on how to deal with unfinished estates.
“This relates very much to Nama, because it will be the owner of a lot of these properties,” the source said. “Its main function is to get the best value for taxpayers, but it will have to make choices. If it finds that there are 100 houses approved, of which only 20 are occupied, 40 vacant and the rest unfinished, including roads, public-safety problems arise. If Nama wants to extract a saleable asset out of that, it will have to resolve issues with the local authority and may have to abandon those parts of an estate that are no longer viable.”
A great deal of putative development land will have to be dezoned, whatever about the distress this causes to its owners and their bankers. This process has already got under way in Co Kerry, where councillors have started to unravel decisions that led to 2,529 hectares of land being zoned – enough to house six times its population. Nationally, for the foreseeable future, planning policy will seek to consolidate Dublin and other cities.
“In the Dublin area, where the ‘completed but not sold’ overhang would meet less than a year’s demand, we’ll be prioritising Adamstown and Clonburris, where the State has put in €500 million in public investment,” the source said. “We have to make sure that we corral whatever emerges from the ashes into locations like that.”
The new Planning Bill should help, given its emphasis on the need for councils to demonstrate that their development plans comply with regional planning guidelines, the National Spatial Strategy and sustainable-development principles. Given that new guidelines are due to be finalised later this year, it is seen as essential that the Planning Bill is enacted before the Dáil breaks for its long summer recess. Only then would county managers and planning officials be able to say that inappropriate zoning proposals can’t be adopted – because now they’re against the law.
Against the odds, the blow-ins bed down
Rather than returning to the city, many of those who lived in the commuter belt in 2003 have been joined by their extended families, writes KATHY SHERIDAN
The sky did not fall in. The commuter towns we explored seven years ago did not explode and die. Blue-jerseyed Dubs failed to storm the capital after a second nuclear winter in Rochfortbridge.
It failed to happen because the view that miserable first-time buyers were being forced from their sophisticated native city into injun territory was always too simplistic. There was nothing homogenous about them, for a start. Sure, some talked gleefully of selling up in Drimnagh, Clondalkin or Walkinstown for fabulous money, getting a house twice the size for buttons 75km down the road and lashing the remainder on a good car.
But privately, in countless cases, there were deeper motives, never articulated for fear of upsetting good former neighbours: worries about children being enmeshed in antisocial gangs, a woman too frightened to walk to the shops, an inner-city school so deprived even teachers were bailing out.
Many of those who landed in Ratoath, then the fastest-growing commuter centre in Leinster, were ready-formed families trading up. Rochfortbridge was alive with Dubs in love with their spacious houses, big gardens, safe neighbourhoods and good local schools.
In Carlow and Gorey middle- class couples who missed Dublin’s variety and cosmopolitanism firmly believed they were giving their children a “country” ethos and freedom to roam.
The vast majority of those we interviewed in 2003 are still there. A cynic might suggest that of course they are; who can sell a house in Rochfortbridge or Carlow now? But how to explain, then, the startling number of parents and siblings who joined those pioneers? Or the offspring who failed to flee to Dublin as soon as they came of age? A couple who fled north Dublin eight years ago now have parents, siblings and offspring – 21 in total – living all around them in Rochfortbridge.
Some are mortgage-free, which suggests free choice. The teenage daughter of a Walkinstown family, who hadn’t quite taken to it when we talked seven years ago, has since married another Dub blow-in and settled in a house only metres from her parents’ home. Her brother has also bought in.
There were casualties, of course. The man who despaired that “in Dublin, house prices are unaffordable, but here is inaccessible” abandoned Gorey a year later for a dormitory town nearer Dublin. The exhausted cries of the baby being hauled out of bed at dawn to be loaded into the car were finally intolerable, and the long-promised commuter train and bypass were nowhere in sight. There was the inner-city girl, now 20, who moved to Carlow at 12 but couldn’t be kept out of Dublin. “She’s just a city kid,” sighs her mother now, as the daughter kicks up her heels in London.
Seven years ago, for an outsider, it was sometimes hard to see an upside. Freedom to roam was not the first phrase that came to mind in the little village of Ratoath, with its rampaging development, negligible amenities, lack of footpaths, poor lighting and thunderous traffic. Neither Rochfortbridge nor Portlaoise had a playground. The lack of a commuter train in exploding Gorey was inexplicable. Water and sewerage capacity was inadequate even at that stage. And for all the talk of great “country” schools, it was clear that no one on high was doing the sums.
In 2010 water supply remains a talking point in Rochfortbridge, where it arrives unreliably, through asbestos piping, and the town still awaits its playground. Ironically, the delay in upgrading sewerage capacity saved places such as Gorey and Rochfortbridge from further developer madness.
AGAINST ALL THE odds, these places have come a long way. Most have magnificent new arts and community centres, fine new schools and booming sports clubs. Transport links have improved hugely. In seven years Ratoath has created an entire new infrastructure.
If there are heroes in this story, they are the community activists, boards of management, parish priests and even some councillors and officials who consulted, raised funds, compiled reports, attended meetings and relentlessly badgered those in authority to live up to their responsibilities.
John Scott, a Glaswegian project engineer who arrived in Ratoath 10 years ago with his wife and two young children, remains astonished at the amount of lobbying required to get a basic essential, such as a school. “The Government tries to delegate responsibility but not authority,” he says.
By contrast, the number of creches, thin on the ground seven years ago, has reached saturation point, says Sonya Duggan of the Kilminchy creche in Portlaoise, and there is no longer a level playing pitch between trained professionals and home-based child-carers. Numbers of children in creches are falling because of job losses and couples finding their own way through the thorny thicket of work-life balance.
In 2003 this was a major source of angst, but even then surveys showed that families with two full-time working parents were not as common as was generally believed. Rochfortbridge and Rathoath had as many stay-at-home mothers as commuters, and quite a few had landed local jobs with child-friendly hours. Nonetheless, many mothers were marooned at home with largely absent fathers.
In Rochfortbridge, at Niamh Gallagher’s Little Rascals creche, the number of children in her charge full time has fallen dramatically since 2003; just five out of 60 now, and in general they arrive later. Sonya Duggan reckons that her full-time numbers are down by half. Many are in for three days a week – “a combination of fathers losing their jobs and parents working out a better work-life balance”.
The difference now is that many fathers are striving for that balance. Some have increased their days working from home as technology improves and managers learn to trust remote workers. Conor McAllister, who lives in Ratoath but runs the Grafton Barber on Grafton Street in Dublin, uses CCTV to monitor the business from home.
Commuting frustrations have also eased. Through the boom years the crisis points were predictable, says Dr Gerald White, a Portlaoise GP, recalling how “the wheels came off” for many commuting parents when someone fell ill. “The exhaustion factor kicked in, and they would come looking for a physical cause.” With the arrival of better roads and public transport, he is seeing a distinct improvement. “Most would tell you the road journey is much simpler. The train service is much improved . . . but now, of course, there are new and different worries. One or both are losing jobs. There’s a lot more pressure.”
Fr Gerry Stuart, Ratoath’s parish priest, who is seeing the new primary schools finally swimming into focus, likes to think that the recession is “a way for the soul to catch up with the body”. It’s as good an analogy as any for what happened to the commuter counties in boom-town Ireland.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Ghost estates, negative equity and soul-sapping commutes are the legacy of our planning-free property bubble. Cleaning up the zoning mess won't be easy, writes FRANK McDONALD , Environment Editor
The mantra of the boom years might well have been “Build it and they will come.” And for 10 years or more it worked. But the frenzy of construction was bound to come to an end, leaving Ireland littered with incongruous developments – as well as tens of thousands of vacant houses in ghost estates.
In 2003, when we first took a long look at the commuter counties, it was evident that much of this unplanned growth had been fuelled by Dubliners fleeing exorbitant property prices. Getting their hands on relatively affordable houses, even in places they had barely heard of, seemed worth the commute.
The trend of Dublin leapfrogging into Leinster and even, with Cavan and Monaghan, into Ulster ran counter to all planning policies, but this was simply ignored. The complacent view at the time was that the growth of Commuterland would tail off when the houses “out there” lost their value, which they now have.
It was in many ways a plan-free zone. Sure, there were plans aplenty – at local, county, regional and national level. But none of them really meant anything, as council after council indulged in an orgy of rezoning so that landowners could cash in on development values and every county in Leinster and beyond could grab a share of Dublin’s growth.
Local area plans intended to provide orderly frameworks for development were often subverted by councillors and used as vehicles to satisfy the greed of farmers, speculators and developers. And regional planning guidelines that were meant to take a broader view turned out to be paper tigers that could safely be ignored locally.
In 2002 the independent Kildare councillor Tony McEvoy and Michael Smith, then chairman of An Taisce, sought a judicial review of the Meath county plan. The High Court upheld it despite evidence that it didn’t comply with the Greater Dublin strategic planning guidelines and that rezoning decisions were influenced by lobbying from landowners. This ruling by Mr Justice John Quirke exposed the guidelines as meaningless: all the councillors needed to do was to “have regard to” them, which could involve merely giving the document a sideways glance. There was no legal requirement on councillors in Meath, or anywhere else, to comply with regional planning guidelines.
The High Court decision opened the floodgates, with councillors rezoning land to beat the band – more often than not against all planning advice. Field after field on the edge of a town or village was turned into gold, and not a finger was lifted by successive ministers for the environment until Dick Roche quashed the Laois county plan in 2006.
Four years earlier Martin Cullen had declined to use the 2000 Planning Act to rein in councillors in Gorey after they zoned enough land for development to cater for up to 10 times its population.
Asked by The Irish Times in 2003 if this was not in complete defiance of public policy, Cullen said: “Yes it is, in the very narrow purist sense. But it’s not in the context of catering for what has happened in Ireland in the last few years. This massive bubble of young people came through, and where the hell were we going to put them?”
They were “making choices” to live “down the country a bit” and commute to Dublin. “The gamble is that as we develop further on, this will change.”
Of course, it didn’t change. A whole new Commuterland opened up, in some cases encouraged by tax incentives; much of the housing explosion in Longford, for example, happened because the whole county was covered by former finance minister Charlie McCreevy’s misguided Upper Shannon Rural Renewal Scheme.
“The real villain was McCreevy’s decision to go with it, giving strong incentives for investors,” one senior planner said. “All the damage is the result of that. An interdepartmental group was put together to look at the impacts of the scheme, just two years after it was introduced in 1999, and recommended that it should be stopped.”
Its unforeseen consequences were noted by Carl O’Brien of The Irish Times in December 2008 when he visited Battery Court, “Longford’s most prestigious address”, and found about half of the 100 or so houses built and work on the rest abandoned. With no signs of life, it was “eerily quiet, almost like a post-apocalyptic scene from a science-fiction movie”.
There are scenes like this almost everywhere now, as property prices collapse – particularly in Commuterland – and developers go bust, with their unsustainable bank loans going into Nama. Empty houses, shops, retail parks and shopping centres are all grim evidence of how the boom was so grotesquely mismanaged. Few brakes were applied. In some cases the Department of the Environment withheld funding for water and sewerage schemes where land was zoned against planning advice. In others An Bord Pleanála simply refused planning permission where the zoning went against sustainable development.
But these were exceptions in a rip-roaring era that left us with thousands of hectares of zoned land that’s not developed. In Commuterland Laois is tops, with 1,678 hectares, followed by Meath (1,652), Wexford (1,382), Cavan (1,161), Kildare (1,147), Offaly (1,044), Westmeath (977), Louth (948), Longford (910), Wicklow (714) and Carlow (408). “Meath has six or seven times what it needs,” one planning source said. “But it’s a much deeper problem in the BMW [Border, Midlands and West] region, particularly in Longford, Roscommon, Leitrim and Sligo.”
The Department of the Environment is surveying every county, trying to “profile the status” of unfinished estates in terms of the number of houses completed, still vacant or at various stages of construction before the builders walked away. Based on this, the department will formulate a policy response. It is also planning a manual for local authorities on how to deal with unfinished estates.
“This relates very much to Nama, because it will be the owner of a lot of these properties,” the source said. “Its main function is to get the best value for taxpayers, but it will have to make choices. If it finds that there are 100 houses approved, of which only 20 are occupied, 40 vacant and the rest unfinished, including roads, public-safety problems arise. If Nama wants to extract a saleable asset out of that, it will have to resolve issues with the local authority and may have to abandon those parts of an estate that are no longer viable.”
A great deal of putative development land will have to be dezoned, whatever about the distress this causes to its owners and their bankers. This process has already got under way in Co Kerry, where councillors have started to unravel decisions that led to 2,529 hectares of land being zoned – enough to house six times its population. Nationally, for the foreseeable future, planning policy will seek to consolidate Dublin and other cities.
“In the Dublin area, where the ‘completed but not sold’ overhang would meet less than a year’s demand, we’ll be prioritising Adamstown and Clonburris, where the State has put in €500 million in public investment,” the source said. “We have to make sure that we corral whatever emerges from the ashes into locations like that.”
The new Planning Bill should help, given its emphasis on the need for councils to demonstrate that their development plans comply with regional planning guidelines, the National Spatial Strategy and sustainable-development principles. Given that new guidelines are due to be finalised later this year, it is seen as essential that the Planning Bill is enacted before the Dáil breaks for its long summer recess. Only then would county managers and planning officials be able to say that inappropriate zoning proposals can’t be adopted – because now they’re against the law.
Against the odds, the blow-ins bed down
Rather than returning to the city, many of those who lived in the commuter belt in 2003 have been joined by their extended families, writes KATHY SHERIDAN
The sky did not fall in. The commuter towns we explored seven years ago did not explode and die. Blue-jerseyed Dubs failed to storm the capital after a second nuclear winter in Rochfortbridge.
It failed to happen because the view that miserable first-time buyers were being forced from their sophisticated native city into injun territory was always too simplistic. There was nothing homogenous about them, for a start. Sure, some talked gleefully of selling up in Drimnagh, Clondalkin or Walkinstown for fabulous money, getting a house twice the size for buttons 75km down the road and lashing the remainder on a good car.
But privately, in countless cases, there were deeper motives, never articulated for fear of upsetting good former neighbours: worries about children being enmeshed in antisocial gangs, a woman too frightened to walk to the shops, an inner-city school so deprived even teachers were bailing out.
Many of those who landed in Ratoath, then the fastest-growing commuter centre in Leinster, were ready-formed families trading up. Rochfortbridge was alive with Dubs in love with their spacious houses, big gardens, safe neighbourhoods and good local schools.
In Carlow and Gorey middle- class couples who missed Dublin’s variety and cosmopolitanism firmly believed they were giving their children a “country” ethos and freedom to roam.
The vast majority of those we interviewed in 2003 are still there. A cynic might suggest that of course they are; who can sell a house in Rochfortbridge or Carlow now? But how to explain, then, the startling number of parents and siblings who joined those pioneers? Or the offspring who failed to flee to Dublin as soon as they came of age? A couple who fled north Dublin eight years ago now have parents, siblings and offspring – 21 in total – living all around them in Rochfortbridge.
Some are mortgage-free, which suggests free choice. The teenage daughter of a Walkinstown family, who hadn’t quite taken to it when we talked seven years ago, has since married another Dub blow-in and settled in a house only metres from her parents’ home. Her brother has also bought in.
There were casualties, of course. The man who despaired that “in Dublin, house prices are unaffordable, but here is inaccessible” abandoned Gorey a year later for a dormitory town nearer Dublin. The exhausted cries of the baby being hauled out of bed at dawn to be loaded into the car were finally intolerable, and the long-promised commuter train and bypass were nowhere in sight. There was the inner-city girl, now 20, who moved to Carlow at 12 but couldn’t be kept out of Dublin. “She’s just a city kid,” sighs her mother now, as the daughter kicks up her heels in London.
Seven years ago, for an outsider, it was sometimes hard to see an upside. Freedom to roam was not the first phrase that came to mind in the little village of Ratoath, with its rampaging development, negligible amenities, lack of footpaths, poor lighting and thunderous traffic. Neither Rochfortbridge nor Portlaoise had a playground. The lack of a commuter train in exploding Gorey was inexplicable. Water and sewerage capacity was inadequate even at that stage. And for all the talk of great “country” schools, it was clear that no one on high was doing the sums.
In 2010 water supply remains a talking point in Rochfortbridge, where it arrives unreliably, through asbestos piping, and the town still awaits its playground. Ironically, the delay in upgrading sewerage capacity saved places such as Gorey and Rochfortbridge from further developer madness.
AGAINST ALL THE odds, these places have come a long way. Most have magnificent new arts and community centres, fine new schools and booming sports clubs. Transport links have improved hugely. In seven years Ratoath has created an entire new infrastructure.
If there are heroes in this story, they are the community activists, boards of management, parish priests and even some councillors and officials who consulted, raised funds, compiled reports, attended meetings and relentlessly badgered those in authority to live up to their responsibilities.
John Scott, a Glaswegian project engineer who arrived in Ratoath 10 years ago with his wife and two young children, remains astonished at the amount of lobbying required to get a basic essential, such as a school. “The Government tries to delegate responsibility but not authority,” he says.
By contrast, the number of creches, thin on the ground seven years ago, has reached saturation point, says Sonya Duggan of the Kilminchy creche in Portlaoise, and there is no longer a level playing pitch between trained professionals and home-based child-carers. Numbers of children in creches are falling because of job losses and couples finding their own way through the thorny thicket of work-life balance.
In 2003 this was a major source of angst, but even then surveys showed that families with two full-time working parents were not as common as was generally believed. Rochfortbridge and Rathoath had as many stay-at-home mothers as commuters, and quite a few had landed local jobs with child-friendly hours. Nonetheless, many mothers were marooned at home with largely absent fathers.
In Rochfortbridge, at Niamh Gallagher’s Little Rascals creche, the number of children in her charge full time has fallen dramatically since 2003; just five out of 60 now, and in general they arrive later. Sonya Duggan reckons that her full-time numbers are down by half. Many are in for three days a week – “a combination of fathers losing their jobs and parents working out a better work-life balance”.
The difference now is that many fathers are striving for that balance. Some have increased their days working from home as technology improves and managers learn to trust remote workers. Conor McAllister, who lives in Ratoath but runs the Grafton Barber on Grafton Street in Dublin, uses CCTV to monitor the business from home.
Commuting frustrations have also eased. Through the boom years the crisis points were predictable, says Dr Gerald White, a Portlaoise GP, recalling how “the wheels came off” for many commuting parents when someone fell ill. “The exhaustion factor kicked in, and they would come looking for a physical cause.” With the arrival of better roads and public transport, he is seeing a distinct improvement. “Most would tell you the road journey is much simpler. The train service is much improved . . . but now, of course, there are new and different worries. One or both are losing jobs. There’s a lot more pressure.”
Fr Gerry Stuart, Ratoath’s parish priest, who is seeing the new primary schools finally swimming into focus, likes to think that the recession is “a way for the soul to catch up with the body”. It’s as good an analogy as any for what happened to the commuter counties in boom-town Ireland.
Irish Times
www.buckplanning.ie
Sunday, 13 June 2010
Back in the dock for players in this unholy alliance
A further inquiry is needed in light of the Moylan report that exposes the many conflicts of interest in Anglo Irish Bank's link to the DDDA, writes Neil Callanan
Developer Liam Carroll: his firm agreed to cede some of its land to the DDDA in return for being granted permission for a 16-storey building
Further probes are now likely into the implications of a High Court decision overruling planning permission granted by the DDDA for a Liam Carroll office block on Dublin's north quays that was earmarked for Anglo Irish Bank. The draft Moylan report, published last week by the DDDA, reviewed certain issues in relation to the build-up to the loss but it is clear that the issue is far from over. Sources believe an investigation by the Oireachtas's Public Accounts Committee may be warranted.
At the heart of the report is a "secret" deal whereby Liam Carroll's company agreed to cede some of its land to the DDDA for a public park in return for being granted permission for a 16-storey building in an area where the maximum height was seven storeys plus a setback storey.
It also became apparent, according to Moylan's report, that the relevant planning file was "sometimes unavailable to the public, and further that the content of the file was incomplete from time to time, when viewed by interested parties".
In many respects, the statement issued by the DDDA accompanying the report's release contained more interesting information than the report itself. Particularly striking was the revelation that in June or July 2008 a board member of the DDDA was informed by somebody outside the authority of the "true" content of an agreement between the DDDA and Liam Carroll in relation to the future development of the land. "When that board member attempted to bring the agreement to the attention of his fellow board members, he was impeded from so doing," the statement said.
The public has a right to know who impeded the board member and why. A public hearing through the Public Accounts Committee would be an ideal way of revealing this information.
Questions also need to be asked of then DDDA chairman Donal O'Connor's decision to tell Declan Moylan, who is chairman of legal firm Mason Hayes + Curran, to adopt a "co-operative" approach to his inquiry that would not result in "apportioning blame or liability on individuals". The state-owned DDDA had wasted millions on the court case and the inquiry should have been rigorous. Instead, a note to Moylan's report said he was asked "to adopt a low-key co-operative and non-confrontational style in my dealing with persons to be interviewed. I was asked not to conduct the exercise or any interviews with a view to apportioning blame or liability on individuals in due course, but to encourage interviewees to interact with me in a spirit of co-operation, seeking relevant solutions to the issues facing the authority in the future having 'learned the lessons' of the past".
His report was presented to the board on 13 December 2008 and "some small changes to the draft were made as a result of comments from board members, and a revised draft document was generated on 27 January 2009". It is that report that was released last week under Freedom of Information legislation.
Moylan withdrew from the project in September of last year because, Moylan stated, current DDDA chairwoman Niamh Brennan made clear that the extended work would "inevitably involve apportionment of blame on various parties, a direction in which I could not go in view of my earlier promises to the interviewees. I felt I could not proceed in this way either professionally or legally."
He had also learned that "an approach had been made to a key interviewee, that aspects of my draft conclusions had been discussed with him, and that recommendations had been made as to how he might communicate with me in further interview(s)".
The conflicts of interest at the heart of the DDDA in relation to this Liam Carroll site are obvious. The DDDA, which had a number of directors related to Anglo Irish Bank, backed planning approval for a building whose construction was being financed by the bank and which would also be occupied by the bank.
As the DDDA itself put it last week: "The conflicts of interest at the nexus of the relationships between the developers of that building, Anglo Irish Bank and certain individuals on the former Board of the Authority are striking. If no other controversy had occurred at the DDDA over the past 10 years, these matters alone would be sufficient to have seriously undermined public confidence in the authority. They therefore deserve the most careful scrutiny and examination."
It went on to say that "the issues which arose at that time and which emerged through the High Court case require a more far-reaching and comprehensive examination than has proved possible to date."
Other reports have followed into issues at the DDDA but the authority believes further independent investigation is required to "fully and properly address" these events.
Sunday Tribune
www.buckplanning.ie
Developer Liam Carroll: his firm agreed to cede some of its land to the DDDA in return for being granted permission for a 16-storey building
Further probes are now likely into the implications of a High Court decision overruling planning permission granted by the DDDA for a Liam Carroll office block on Dublin's north quays that was earmarked for Anglo Irish Bank. The draft Moylan report, published last week by the DDDA, reviewed certain issues in relation to the build-up to the loss but it is clear that the issue is far from over. Sources believe an investigation by the Oireachtas's Public Accounts Committee may be warranted.
At the heart of the report is a "secret" deal whereby Liam Carroll's company agreed to cede some of its land to the DDDA for a public park in return for being granted permission for a 16-storey building in an area where the maximum height was seven storeys plus a setback storey.
It also became apparent, according to Moylan's report, that the relevant planning file was "sometimes unavailable to the public, and further that the content of the file was incomplete from time to time, when viewed by interested parties".
In many respects, the statement issued by the DDDA accompanying the report's release contained more interesting information than the report itself. Particularly striking was the revelation that in June or July 2008 a board member of the DDDA was informed by somebody outside the authority of the "true" content of an agreement between the DDDA and Liam Carroll in relation to the future development of the land. "When that board member attempted to bring the agreement to the attention of his fellow board members, he was impeded from so doing," the statement said.
The public has a right to know who impeded the board member and why. A public hearing through the Public Accounts Committee would be an ideal way of revealing this information.
Questions also need to be asked of then DDDA chairman Donal O'Connor's decision to tell Declan Moylan, who is chairman of legal firm Mason Hayes + Curran, to adopt a "co-operative" approach to his inquiry that would not result in "apportioning blame or liability on individuals". The state-owned DDDA had wasted millions on the court case and the inquiry should have been rigorous. Instead, a note to Moylan's report said he was asked "to adopt a low-key co-operative and non-confrontational style in my dealing with persons to be interviewed. I was asked not to conduct the exercise or any interviews with a view to apportioning blame or liability on individuals in due course, but to encourage interviewees to interact with me in a spirit of co-operation, seeking relevant solutions to the issues facing the authority in the future having 'learned the lessons' of the past".
His report was presented to the board on 13 December 2008 and "some small changes to the draft were made as a result of comments from board members, and a revised draft document was generated on 27 January 2009". It is that report that was released last week under Freedom of Information legislation.
Moylan withdrew from the project in September of last year because, Moylan stated, current DDDA chairwoman Niamh Brennan made clear that the extended work would "inevitably involve apportionment of blame on various parties, a direction in which I could not go in view of my earlier promises to the interviewees. I felt I could not proceed in this way either professionally or legally."
He had also learned that "an approach had been made to a key interviewee, that aspects of my draft conclusions had been discussed with him, and that recommendations had been made as to how he might communicate with me in further interview(s)".
The conflicts of interest at the heart of the DDDA in relation to this Liam Carroll site are obvious. The DDDA, which had a number of directors related to Anglo Irish Bank, backed planning approval for a building whose construction was being financed by the bank and which would also be occupied by the bank.
As the DDDA itself put it last week: "The conflicts of interest at the nexus of the relationships between the developers of that building, Anglo Irish Bank and certain individuals on the former Board of the Authority are striking. If no other controversy had occurred at the DDDA over the past 10 years, these matters alone would be sufficient to have seriously undermined public confidence in the authority. They therefore deserve the most careful scrutiny and examination."
It went on to say that "the issues which arose at that time and which emerged through the High Court case require a more far-reaching and comprehensive examination than has proved possible to date."
Other reports have followed into issues at the DDDA but the authority believes further independent investigation is required to "fully and properly address" these events.
Sunday Tribune
www.buckplanning.ie
NRA puts halt on nine 'truck stops'
The National Roads Authority has shelved controversial plans for a series of 'truck stops' around Ireland that local opposition groups say will lead to an increase in crime and shatter local property values.
The stops were designed to provide service facilities to motorists on Ireland's expanding road network, but plans for the service areas (SAs) have been heavily criticised by communities.
Due to special planning laws, the SAs – which include parking, restaurants, showers, toilets, picnic areas and garages – are not dependent on local authority planning, ruling out the first line of defence afforded to concerned communities.
Residents near a proposed site on the N11 in Co Wexford estimated in 2008 that their property values would drop by as much as 75%, although values would have already dropped by now due to market conditions.
Other concerns harboured by those in areas close to the proposed SAs included increased crime levels and visual and noise pollution. "We oppose this on several fronts," Fran Seale of the Ballyellen Action Group told the Sunday Tribune.
"We are talking in excess of 30 acres [for the developments]. We have not seen anything on this scale in Ireland before."
The NRA said that this type of project would always attract local opposition and that everything was being done to listen to concerns.
However, those living in the vicinity of nine of the proposed SAs have had the 'threat' lifted, at least for the time being.
The NRA has said it does not have the finances in place to deliver on all of the plans, with the exception of three sites due to open later this year. A spokesman said: "The rest of them are on hold until funding is put in place."
The SuperStop consortium, which won the contract to run six of the SAs, are now close to finishing the build on the three given the go-ahead.
These are located at Lusk and Castlebellingham on the M1 and at Enfield on the M4, all of which should be open by November.
Sunday Tribune
www.buckplanning.ie
The stops were designed to provide service facilities to motorists on Ireland's expanding road network, but plans for the service areas (SAs) have been heavily criticised by communities.
Due to special planning laws, the SAs – which include parking, restaurants, showers, toilets, picnic areas and garages – are not dependent on local authority planning, ruling out the first line of defence afforded to concerned communities.
Residents near a proposed site on the N11 in Co Wexford estimated in 2008 that their property values would drop by as much as 75%, although values would have already dropped by now due to market conditions.
Other concerns harboured by those in areas close to the proposed SAs included increased crime levels and visual and noise pollution. "We oppose this on several fronts," Fran Seale of the Ballyellen Action Group told the Sunday Tribune.
"We are talking in excess of 30 acres [for the developments]. We have not seen anything on this scale in Ireland before."
The NRA said that this type of project would always attract local opposition and that everything was being done to listen to concerns.
However, those living in the vicinity of nine of the proposed SAs have had the 'threat' lifted, at least for the time being.
The NRA has said it does not have the finances in place to deliver on all of the plans, with the exception of three sites due to open later this year. A spokesman said: "The rest of them are on hold until funding is put in place."
The SuperStop consortium, which won the contract to run six of the SAs, are now close to finishing the build on the three given the go-ahead.
These are located at Lusk and Castlebellingham on the M1 and at Enfield on the M4, all of which should be open by November.
Sunday Tribune
www.buckplanning.ie
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