Press Release – O’Gorman calls for new apartment guidelines in Fingal

18/08/08

Green Party Castleknock ward candidate, Roderic O’Gorman has called on Fingal County Council to swiftly draw up new planning guidelines concerning the size of apartments that can be built in the Fingal area.

“I am calling on Fingal County Council to introduce new guidelines on the size of apartments that can be built by developers. For too long, apartment developments in the Dublin 15 area have focused on large numbers of small one and two bedroom apartments. These ‘shoebox’ developments are not family friendly and this discourages families settling for long periods and in the long run, prevents communities from forming”, stated Roderic O’Gorman.

“Recently, Dublin City Council drew up a new set of guidelines for the city area. Developments built according to these guidelines will be far more conducive to families – for example they set significantly larger minimum floor sizes for apartments, place restrictions on the number of one bed apartments and require a minimum of 15% 3 bed apartments in all developments”.

“I believe that, in areas like Dublin 15 which have seen large amounts of intensive building, we have to make sure that any new apartment developments are of a much higher standard than those built up to now. In recent weeks we have seen a planning application in Castleknock village which includes 48 one and two bed apartments but only 1 three bed apartment. This sort of development needs to be changed”.

“At the recent meeting of Fingal County Council concerning the Kellystown rezoning, the Green Party councillors secured a commitment from Gilbert Power, Director of Services for Planning that the Council would quickly draw up new apartment guidelines for Fingal. I am calling on the Council to quickly act on this commitment”, concluded Roderic O’Gorman.

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Further Information
Roderic O’Gorman: 087 417 9777
rodericogorman@gmail.com

Press Release – Commitment for new planning guidelines on flood prevention welcomed – O’Gorman

18/08/08

Green Party Castleknock ward candidate, Roderic O’Gorman has welcomed the commitment from the Department of the Environment to swiftly publish planning guidelines on flood prevention.

“I’m pleased to see that the Department of the Environment has been working on developing new planning guidelines to deal with flood prevention already, and will have these ready for publication in September or October. The reality of climate change is that Ireland is going to suffer from more and more extreme weather events, and this fact needs to be taken into account in development”, stated Roderic O’Gorman.

“The guidelines are being developed in conjunction with the Office of Public Works. They will require local authorities to include flood risk areas in their development plans. This will put local authorities in a better position to deal with emergency situations like we have experienced over the last two weeks”.

O’Gorman also highlighted how overdevelopment could have made a significant contribution to the major flooding in the Dublin area.

“Some of the worst of the flooding in the Dublin area over the last two weeks has occurred in places which have seen major building work over the past years, including along the N3 beside the Blanchardstown Centre and along the Finglas Road towards the Tolka valley. The fact that huge patches of green space have been concreted over and many trees and hedges have been removed means that there is nothing left to soak up rain water, and as such it lodges on roads”, concluded Roderic O’Gorman.

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Further Information
Roderic O’Gorman: 087 417 9777
rodericogorman@gmail.com

New Draft Urban Planning Guidelines are a break with past planning mistakes

I was very pleased to see the new Draft Sustainable Residential Development Planning Guidelines, published yesterday by John Gormley.

I reckon that Dublin 15 is a prime example of how to mess up urban planning. The crises we have experienced with insufficient school places and inadequate public transport can all be traced back to the complete failure to properly plan the expansion of residential development in Dublin 15. It has been us as residents that have suffered the consequences of these huge blunders.

John Gormley has published new draft guidelines on Sustainable Residential Development in Urban Areas. These will give detailed guidance to local authorities in how they permit future residential building in their area.

Speaking with the experiences of Dublin 15 in mind, a number of key aspects to the new guidelines stick out. They state that no substantial residential development should proceed without an assessment of existing schools capacity or the provision of new school facilities at the same time as the development. Further, they call for restrictions on residential development without either adequate existing public transport provision or new public transport being provided, again at the same time as the development. The guidelines also demand adequate provision at convenient locations for retail, health and other community facilities. These three points in particular could have been written in response to the problems that have occurred in Dublin 15.

The draft guidelines are available for inspection at the Department of Environment’s website, www.environ.ie. All members of the public have the right to comment or make submissions on the draft guidelines up to the 30th April.

These new guidelines are part of a wide-ranging effort by Minister Gormley to reform planning in Ireland and ensure that the planning process is about creating communities, not profiting developers. I see them as a real break with past mistakes. My only regret is that these guidelines are being published now, rather than 15 years ago.