An Bord Pleanala finally granted permission for the expansion of the town of Bray in a 60,000 sq.m. scheme. http://tinyurl.com/2g2w6mk. Pizarro Development must be thanking their lucky stars they didn't get a timely decision, and weren't on-site when the recession hit. The scheme as granted will never be built, and planning law does not offer a simple means of phasing such a scheme reprospectively. A planning permission is indivisible, and its illegal to develop on an a-la-carte basis unless specifically applied for.
Furthermore, the typcial Celtic-Tiger uber scheme is extremely difficult to break up into phases. Basement car parking covering several building blocks with shared foundations do not readily lend themselves to incremental schemes. The design of the uber scheme was comprehensive (urban design by architects)- big finance, big engineering, big architecture and all in one go.
This isn't going to happen any time soon. The answer is to break the scheme up, provide a robust infrastructure for all eventualities, and adopt an urban design code that will guide development for 10 to 20 years.
Nama has many, many problems, but one of them is even with recent planning permissions - alot of them arn't useful and shouldn't be developed. While they will have power to extend the life of permissions on economic grounds - you really have to wonder what the point is.
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