"Selective" planning strategy for Dublin promised

DUBLIN Corporation's planners intend to be more "selective" about the type of development they permit in the city, according to the chief planning officer, Mr Pat McDonnell.

Addressing a special meeting of the City Council's planning committee yesterday, he said the city could now afford to become a "centre of excellence", encouraging "only the best quality development, as befits a European capital city".

Mr McDonnell said Dublin was "in the middle of a boom which hopefully will continue". Hundreds of millions of pounds were being invested in it not just by the private sector, but also the public sector, with projects such as Luas and the port tunnel.

At the same time, the current boom had created "enormous pressures". A lot of communities in the city were also "under stress", due to drugs, crime and unemployment. There was what one councillor had described as a "black crescent" of deprivation, around the city.

Dublin Corporation would be working with the new area partnerships and local community "groups in drafting a new city development plan to replace the current plan, dating from 1991, which had been prepared during an economic slump.

Although he stressed that the new plan would be the "City Council's plan" and the planners were only there as "advisers", no more than 10 of the 52 councillors turned up for the meeting.

Mr McDonnell said Dublin city was now part of a "conurbation" which included the three independent local authority areas in the county. It needed a regional land use plan which would take a strategic view of the whole metropol it an area.

The new city plan would be based on the concept of "sustainable development". Among other issues, the planners would be trying to define a coherent urban planning framework which would build on the city's strengths while protecting its heritage.

"The last thing we want is wall to wall housing", Mr McDonnell said, referring to the numerous apartment blocks which had `sprung' up in the city centre since 1991. What the Corporation favoured was a mix of uses, including residential, in the heart of the city.

Referring to the fact that many parcels of open land owned by religious orders, which had functioned as green lungs in the city, were being sold for redevelopment, he said that the Corporation would have to consider acquiring some of these as public parks.

Cllr Tomas Mac Giolla (WP) called for a Special Amenity Area, Order to protect the Liffey Valley from Islandbridge to the boundary.