Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
The Clare Byrne Show on Newstalk. With Aviva Insurance.
A major rezoning plan for more than 7,000 potential new homes in south and west Dublin has moved a step closer despite strong objections from a number of local politicians. Some of the plans, including developing land near the Liffey Valley in Lucan, have been described as unthinkable and an absolute disgrace. For more on this, I'm joined by Paul Gogarty, Independent TD for Dublin Midwest.
And Tom Phillips, who's Managing Director of Tom Phillips and Associates and Adjunct Associate Professor of Town Planning at UCD. Good morning to you both. Paul Gogarty, I'll come to you first.
Chapter 2: What is the major rezoning plan for South and West Dublin?
Do you believe these plans are an unthinkable disgrace?
Well, good morning, Clare. I think that some proposals should never be built on. Some should be built on once the amenities and infrastructure are put in place. So it's a two-pronged approach. But just to look at the overall picture, we have 56,000 units worth of land already zoned for housing in South Dublin County. And 12,600 of those have already been granted.
So this additional up to 9,000 houses, to me, is oversupply. And what it's going to do, it's going to rezone land for housing. And once it's zoned, it can never be de-zoned. Otherwise, you're talking about compensation claims for developers.
Well, it couldn't be oversupply now because we need 300,000 houses, you know, over the next couple of years.
Chapter 3: What are the local politicians' objections to the rezoning plans?
The question is, are you actually going to build the lands that are already zoned? And you have situations. You mentioned, say, in Edmondsbury and the Liffey Valley, you right beside a special amenity area, which should never have been even considered.
I do believe it's a Trojan horse and hopefully it will be voted down so certain councillors will be able to say, well, look, we did it in the zone St Ed's.
What is that land? Is that park land at the moment?
What it actually is, it's the entrance to the Liffey Valley going down, sloping down towards the River Liffey.
Chapter 4: Who are the guests discussing the rezoning plan?
It's obviously, it's owned by the owners of the complex where St. Patrick's Hospital is currently located. It's zoned amenity at the moment. There have been several attempts to rezone it and at each time it's been stopped. Now that's the big ticket item so to speak but then you go down to the likes of City West in Saggart where the government has taken over the
bypass centre in the old City West Hotel complex. Residents want to see that redeveloped in the long term as a hotel and an amenity, but there's proposals to rezone land there as well. For example, there's proposals to rezone land to the west of Adamstown, massive amounts of land. And again, Adamstown doesn't have the facilities and infrastructure it was promised.
In actual fact, the council planners took away a swimming pool that was planned in the plan. They also consistently objected to trying to put department stores into Adamstown because it would upset the retail hierarchy of Liffey Valley. So people basically have to either try and get a bus service that doesn't turn up or drive to Liffey Valley. So we're talking about good planning.
Let's hear from Tom and I'll come back to you in a moment. So Tom, you've heard the arguments there and I know there's a very strong lobby in Dublin West against further expansion plans and further development, certainly without the infrastructure that people there believe is needed. What do you say?
Well, I think, good morning, I think that we do need to rezone the land. We have a housing crisis. That's the biggest issue is the housing crisis. And the storage of cars, to me, is a secondary issue to the housing of people.
And we have people probably listening to the radio whose parents might be objecting to rezoning and they're in their late 20s and early 30s and they can't get a house or afford a house. So it's about traffic management. It shouldn't be mixed up. with the need for rezoning land.
Why housing that the deputy refers to is not being built is partly for a number of reasons but the issue with a lot of the provision of infrastructure is that you need to have that sometimes that certain forms of infrastructure follow development and one of those is public transport that's very rarely they're put in advance so you have to have committed development before Dublin Bus can expand to these areas.
And the big issue is we should be building 300,000.
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Chapter 5: What are the concerns regarding infrastructure and amenities?
That's what the government is committed to build in, not in the lifetime of this government, but it'll be the next government when the commitment falls. It's the 31st of December, 2030. And we need to be building 300,000 houses, which is 259 houses per working day, excluding weekends, bank holidays, etc. And we're not doing it. And the issue is to do with it.
As a planner, though, just to get the benefit of your expertise on this. I mean, is there any point in building houses if it's miserable to live in them?
If you can't get in or out of your estate because of the traffic, if you can't park your car close to your house because of overpopulation, because there's you know, if there's no school there, if there's no shops there, what is the benefit of that?
That doesn't happen in the sense that you have to get, there's so many checks and balances. Planning is so much difficult to get planning permission. You've got to go to the local authority, then you've got to, inevitably, there's a 95% chance that any housing scheme will go to the, on Commission Panola, formerly known as On Board Panola.
and they have to have huge amount of plans in place that show a social infrastructure audit. The deputy was making reference to IPAS centres. IPAS centres can be put in places without a social infrastructure audit.
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Chapter 6: How does Paul Gogarty view the proposed housing supply?
Housing schemes can't. A planning consultant and the architect and the developer have to prove that for any scheme that's going forward at the moment, have to show that the correct infrastructure is in place from creches to primary schools to secondary schools. So those checks and balances, which didn't really exist in the past, are now front and central to all housing schemes.
So Paul, it's in your head. It doesn't happen. Bad planning doesn't happen.
Bad planning does happen. When Climburs had 8,000 to 11,000 houses planned. I made a proposal not to get rid of one unit, but to move closer to train stations, go higher up so you could create space for playing pitches and schools, and also to tie in the opening of train stations with housing.
That was outvoted by Sinn Féin, Social Democrats, Labour, but at the same time, when we appealed to Ombord Penal, the officials wouldn't let us cross-examine the likes of the NTA. We had to talk to the officials. They said, oh, don't worry, it's all going to be built. It hasn't been built, and that's the problem. So how can you add...
more housing onto an area when you don't have the guarantees and balances. Can I just get back to what Tom said about the need for housing? I absolutely support it. Three years ago, and just to be clear, I've never taken any...
money or a donation of a developer but i did propose uh to rezone lands at the actual if you value shopping center because you've got a big tesco you've got a major shopping center you've got a b and q and the space for a thousand uh units in there which would have made a lot of sense the planning regulator said no no there's enough housing already zoned in south dublin for the next 30 years.
And now two years later, for political reasons only, we're seeing proposals for this again. So it doesn't make sense in any way, shape or form. And I think that's an ideal area to put in housing. And then the coal cut lands that are quite near it would have amenities for playing pitches and community infrastructure. I think there's a win-win to be had.
And Tom, for example, you would have been familiar, obviously, and involved with the glass bottle factory site where 3,000 units were put in the city centre. We need to build more in the city centre rather than letting Dublin develop like a donut and just planting it in greenfield sites and waiting 20 years for infrastructure. It's absolutely woeful planning.
What do you say to that, Tom, that really what we're inviting here is just an urban sprawl?
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