New guidelines mean changes in Dublin area plans

Local authorities throughout the Greater Dublin area - including Meath, Kildare and Wicklow - will have to revise their development plans to take account of new strategic planning guidelines published this week.

The guidelines, commissioned by the Dublin and Mid-East regional authorities and drawn up by a team of consultants, aim to consolidate the metropolitan area and to create new "development centres" in its hinterland, such as Naas, Navan and Wicklow.

Intended to provide a broad planning framework to guide future development at least until 2011, the new strategy has been devised against the background of unprecedented growth, which is likely to increase the area's population by 250,000.

In the metropolitan area - extending from Rush to Greystones and westward to Kilcock - the population is set to increase by 12.5 per cent to 1.25 million, while the number of people living in the hinterland may rise by 36 per cent to 402,000.

By 2011, this would give the Greater Dublin area an overall population of 1.65 million, partly driven by high levels of immigration. Even if economic growth slows down, the consultants say this figure is likely to be reached shortly thereafter.

Because there will be more households, though of smaller sizes, proportionately more housing will be required to accommodate the higher population. The number of households could increase from 450,000 in 1996 to 660,000 in 2011. Such a large increase - amounting to nearly 50 per cent - represents a major challenge to the local authorities and other development agencies, as well as to the construction industry, according to the consultants, who were led by Brady Shipman Martin.

The strategic planning guidelines allocate numbers of people and households to each local authority area in the region. All are said to have sufficient zoned land to accommodate the allocated growth well into the 12-year plan period.

By 2006, only Dublin city will require additional land, though the demand could be met by building at higher densities. Elsewhere, the consultants say that more land will have to be zoned for housing, especially in the period after 2006.

Additional water supplies will also be needed to serve the metropolitan area, with the Barrow and Boyne rivers as potential sources. Providing the schemes currently planned are implemented, there should be sufficient sewage treatment capacity.

THE biggest changes are needed in the area of transportation, particularly public transport. "Land use and transport are wholly interdependent and neither can be planned without a clear view of this complex inter-relationship", the guidelines say.

The consultants reject a strategy based on a continuation of existing trends, saying that the current low-density development pattern in the Greater Dublin area generates extensive use of private cars. The new strategy "must reduce the demand for travel", they declare.

This strategy is based on concentration and consolidation, in line with the principles of sustainable development and the latest perspectives in Europe, rather than on the creation of more "new towns" on greenfield sites requiring high levels of investment.

According to the guidelines - which are to be updated regularly - the development of a broad economic base, balanced between Dublin itself and other centres in the area, will be critical to realising its potential as a major urban economic centre.

Dublin city centre is to retain its dominant position as the main retail centre in the region. Large-scale, out-of-town shopping centres should be "resisted", and the consultants say priority for new retail facilities should go to sites on public transport routes.

The same would apply to major recreational, educational and healthcare facilities as well as to service-based activities employing large numbers of staff. Industry producing large quantities of goods would generally be located on the national road network.

The consultants recommend tax incentives to encourage industry to locate in the designated "development centres" in Dublin's hinterland - Drogheda, Balbriggan, Wicklow and Naas - Newbridge - Kilcullen - and in secondary centres such as Athy and Arklow.

They say most of these areas were selected because they are located either on existing or potential rail routes. Navan was also selected because of its capacity in terms of land, water supply and drainage to accommodate considerable development.

The basis for the growth of these centres is that they do not become primarily dormitory towns for the metropolitan area, though the consultants recognise that commuting to the metropolitan area "will continue, at least in the short to medium term".

One of the consequences of the strategy is that large parts of the Greater Dublin area "will require to be protected from development, other than that necessary to meet local needs", and this will involve designating extensive "strategic greenbelts".

Within these greenbelts, the land uses would be primarily rural - agriculture, forestry and similar activities - but the consultants say they might also accommodate leisure and recreational activities requiring extensive areas of land, such as golf courses.

By 2011, the Greater Dublin area will have a much improved transportation system, with a better balance between public and private transport, more choice in terms of residential and employment location and a clearer demarcation between urban and rural areas.