Standing up to the high-rises

Vera O'Connor knows only too well that she won't be getting any of the 3,000 new jobs promised by the developers of a proposed high-rise office and residential scheme at her back door.

"The only job I'd get would be cleaning the floors or toilets," says the 60-year-old former machinist who has lived all her life in Dublin's south inner city. "I wouldn't clean for nobody. Thirty years sewing is enough for me."

Vera and her neighbours have challenged Dublin Corporation's decision to grant planning permission for the George's Quay scheme, which has a central 73.7 metre glazed tower - equivalent to one and a quarter Liberty Halls. They studied the scheme's environmental impact statement, circulated a news letter and, late one night, erected a big No High Rise banner on a local gable end while Vera kept look out.

As chair of the local tenants' association, last month Vera took two Valium tablets before standing in front of a room of experts at an An Bord Pleanala oral hearing, outlining the objections of her community to the proposed development of offices, shops and apartments. These included fears that the development would overshadow their houses and block their views. The board's decision on that hearing is due late this month. "I got my 15 minutes of fame and my photo in the paper," says Vera, seated at the kitchen table of her neat brick corporation house in Townsend Street with three other members of the tenants' association. Vera's group is one of dozens in inner-city areas, from Smithfield on the north of the River Liffey to Ringsend on the south, which are taking a stand against high-rise developments they claim are being foisted upon their communities without proper consultation.

These groups, many with middle-aged working women at their helms, are pitting their meagre resources against the considerable expertise and financial clout of developers. It's a David and Goliath struggle, and while they have won some battles and lost others, the process itself has been important in galvanising communities as well as generating new confidence and awareness. They are standing up for themselves and saying to politicians and developers that they, too, are stakeholders in the property boom engulfing their areas, and their needs and concerns must be listened to.

With meetings on an almost nightly basis in various parts of the inner city, planning issues are attracting almost the same interest as the anti-heroin movement of the mid-1990s. "Bustling democracy," is how An Taisce's Michael Smith describes the current flurry of activity among inner-city community groups on planning issues.

"Because the developments are getting larger and larger, people are thinking, we should get our act together or we will be walked on," says Smith, who has been involved in monitoring planning applications for the heritage group for six years.

Ten years ago when there was an oral hearing on a high-rise plan for George's Quay, there were no residents at it, says Smith. In 1991, unemployment was high, the property boom had not begun, and people were so busy concentrating on getting jobs that planning was seen as a peripheral issue, he comments.

Whereas communities may in the past have been palmed off with the promise of construction jobs, in today's buoyant labour market that is no longer enough. Residents, says Smith, want facilities and long-term benefits, not just short-term gain. They say they are struggling for the survival of their communities; they also insist they are not anti-development per se, but want to have some kind of a guaranteed stake in the developments proposed for their areas, be it community facilities such as playgrounds and parks, or built-in social or affordable housing, as has recently been announced by the government. Why, they ask, should we accept high-rise towers with electronic gates and transient tenants which offer little to us when our children can't afford to buy houses in our area?

Mick Rafferty, a veteran community activist in the north inner city, says a fresh consciousness developed among residents when heroin abuse became a focal point for community activity around 1996.

"People began to ask what are the wider issues involved here. Why did these problems arise in our areas? Quite a few people who stood up against the dealers are now standing up against those developers who don't take account of community needs. They see a link between neglect and bad policy contrasted with the amount of money being put into new developments."

Rafferty is the director of Community Technical Aid (CTA) which grew from an idea of community representatives involved in the Dublin City Partnership set up in 1994 to tackle social exclusion and unemployment. CTA offers free technical support, training and expertise to communities which face planning changes, yet receives no direct Exchequer funding. About 70 per cent of its funds come from an EU programme which is due to end this year.

Bustling participative democracy, says Rafferty, doesn't happen unless it is resourced and funded, "and if it isn't there, there'll be no dialogue between local communities and developers".

According to Rafferty, there are a handful of developers, mostly smaller companies, which are amenable to providing benefits to local communities, such as social or affordable housing training of local people in apprenticeships.

CTA's staff train residents in planning law, negotiation skills, mediation and community development. Marie O'Reilly knows well how daunting the planning process can be for the uninitiated. When she and her neighbours in North Wall learned of the plans to build Spencer Dock - the biggest development in the history of the State - close to their homes, they visited the Corporation's Civic Offices to find out about the planning application. It contained 1,010 maps in scores of boxes with no index.

"We were there for three hours and it was a nightmare," says Marie whose family home in Upper Mayor Street was built in 1847. "We hadn't a breeze. When we asked for the planning application, the girl said which box do you want - and we said, `which one do you think we should look at?' "

The group's members gave that up as a bad job, and set about teaching themselves how to read architects' plans, understand the technical language of a planning application and appreciate scale drawings. That was about five months ago. Today, Marie sits on her couch with a thick black folder on Spencer Dock, as well as other files, maps and photographs.

Marie's group has shared its learning with residents in the adjacent parish. They called a public meeting in East Wall and projected photographs from the environmental impact study. "People were horrified," says Marie. "There were gasps when they understood for the first time the impact this development would have."

The group has submitted an appeal against the Corporation's grant of planning permission to the Spencer Dock scheme to An Bord Pleanala, which is due to hold an oral hearing this year. "We have lived here through all the bad times of dereliction and the docks failing. Now there is a chance to develop the area, which we want, and the rug is being pulled out from under our feet," says O'Reilly.

A Labour councillor, Kevin Humphries, whose family has lived in the Ringsend area for three generations, says the confidence and expertise which community activists have picked up is spreading to other areas of life. "They are becoming more proactive and coming through with proposals telling the corporation and elected representatives what they want for their areas. They aren't just sitting back and waiting for the next development proposal to come along. It may not be a free education, but it's given them confidence to go out and learn."

Seven dockland communities have formed an anti-high-rise alliance to pool information, offer mutual support and co-ordinate a joint campaign. Last July they marched to the Department of the Environment and An Bord Pleanala to deliver letters of protest.

Smith says the docklands alliance is empowering. "It's a movement that's so strong that all of the councillors in the area have been forced to sit up and take notice. We hope to encourage a city-wide residents alliance centering on high rise and moving on to safeguard the community and public interest in planning generally."