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the last issue of Village carried an article on
the current draft Dublin City Development Plan
and the process of formulating this extremely
important document. The fact that Village publi-
cised such an important process was positive but
the naivety of the authors lessened the impact.
The very first two lines highlighted this naivety:
there was no rumpus within Fine Gael or Labour
when they realised that both parties had voted
for the draft Development Plan. There is rarely a
rumpus within any party on Dublin City Council
(DCC) over any issue simply because the vast
majority of issues is already agreed before their
presentation to the actual City Council meeting.
Dublin City Council officials meet the lead-
ers of the various parties to agree any conten-
tious issues. Hence, when the councillors vote
on something as serious as the City Development
Plan they have already been primed to agree the
outcome. Proof of this can be seen in the result
of the voting even after I brought many of the
contentious issues to the attention of all the
councillors during the initial debate on the draft
Development Plan. Having been schooled by a
mixture of Gramsciesque “organic intellectu-
als” within the communities, individuals from
An Taisce and community-friendly planners, I
highlighted the many contradictions between
the draft Development Plan and sustainable
planning. This wasn’t difficult given that the
six-year lifespan of this Development Plan will
most likely see a serious reduction in building
and development in the city so it is illogical that
the current plan caters for even greater heights
and densities than the previous plan which was
produced during an economic boom. Further
evidence of the naivety of the article is the ref-
erence to the amazement that Fianna Fáil voted
against the draft Development Plan. Fianna Fail,
a party which has an umbilical cord relationship
with the developer class now has the luxury of
offering itself as radical vocal opposition on
Dublin City Council: ironically due to its lack of
success in the local elections. While Fianna Fáil
in Government slashes services and facilities in
working-class communities, their comrades in
Fianna Fáil on Dublin City Council can oppose
cuts in the Council budget for those same areas.
The real opposition to the potential disaster of
this proposed City Development Plan comes
from within communities themselves.
The City Development Plan is an extremely
complex document – perhaps deliberately so. It
would require a manual to understand its tech-
nical intricacies. The appearance everywhere
of unnecessary technical jargon, in a document
which is supposedly aimed at your average
Dubliner, is surely the first hint that all might
not be as it seems.
The current City Manager, John Tierney,
was behind the infamous ‘Maximising the City’s
Potential’ document which was basically a blue-
print for high-rise across Dublin. City Council
officials were forced to back down on this doc-
ument because of the strength of objections
from community groups and residents’ associ-
ations. These same officials are now using the
opportunity of the Development Plan to push
their plans through. They have been very suc-
cessful so far and unless communities use this
final opportunity to counter their high-rise
strategy, we will find that developers will have
a green light to throw up high-rise and super-
high-rise in areas which
weren’t designed for and
cannot sustain this type
of intrusive development.
One simple fact regarding
the proposed Development
Plan which must be high-
lighted is the ludicrous sit-
uation where eight storeys
within the City Centre and
six storeys in the suburbs
will now be considered low-
rise and acceptable to plan-
ners. Dublin will be forever
changed and changed for
the worse.
Increased densities on
sites will increase the prop-
erty value. City council-
lors will then be unable to revert to the original
densities in any subsequent development plan
because of the risk of been sued by a developer
for the resulting fall in the value of the land. The
Carmelite Order site in Ballinteer is an exam-
ple of this. The Carmelites have threatened Dún
Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council with legal
action if the council’s new Development Plan re-
zones the land. The Carmelites claim that the re-
zoning would devalue the property because it
would “significantly diminish the development
potential” of the lands.
The example of the Dublin Docklands
Development Authority (DDDA) should leave
us fearful. The board of the DDDA contained
bankers, developers and political cronies of the
Government parties .We had the almost comi-
cal situation of the bankers on the DDDA board
lending huge sums of money to developers who
were receiving planning permission from the
same DDDA board.
While it is fashionable to condemn the DDDA
in the current climate we must remember that
over the last decade very few were willing to
speak out, including the opposition politicians
who are now most vocal. The local community
has been raising these concerns for almost as
long as the authority has existed.
Leopards don’t change their spots and the
developers, the bankers and their party polit-
ical puppets – and the dynamic of their rela-
tionships with the Community and the public
interest - haven’t changed. Dublin City Council
officials are still pushing the developer-led poli-
cies that have proved to be such a disaster. The
relentless promoting of an unsustainable hig-
rise agenda, against the wishes of the city’s citi-
zens, only serves the interests of the same greedy
minority that Anglo Irish and the DDDA facili-
tated – those that have brought this country to
its knees.
The proposed City Development Plan, as
approved by a majority of the political parties
on the council facilitates the DCC management
in promoting the interests of property devel-
opers and speculators over that of the city and
its citizens.
In the case of the DDDA, the community
was accurate in its prediction and correct in
its stance. Unfortunately, not enough attention
was paid to what they were saying. In making a
final decision on the City Development Plan the
members of the council have a choice – side with
the Management and continue with policies that
have already failed, or listen to the community
- and do the right thing.
”when the councillors vote on
something as serious as the
City Development Plan they
have already been primed to
agree the outcome”
