The Gathering - what about diversity, multi-culturalism & pluralism?

"The Gathering" is a marketing campaign aimed at the "Irish Diaspora", and is Failte Ireland's (the Irish Tourist Board's) major initiative for 2013 (http://www.thegatheringireland.com/). Most countries engage in marketing campaigns to promote tourism. This is different in the sense that it seeks to connect Irish communities to a world wide network of Irish descent. So they're spending an awful lot of public money on marketing at home and abroad on this concept. Google images of'The Gathering' and see what you get. Try and get past the bad Arann jumpers and you get a clear message - You're welcome if you're white. It plays to an false-nostalgia image of 1950s Ireland best associated with small-town minds, catholicism, ethnic and cultural homogeneity. You're welcome if you're middle to old aged, got spending money (while at the same time a generation emigrates on the back of the same government's austerity to become the new diaspora!). "The Gathering" is symtomatic of a national blind-spot to the country Ireland has become.. It ignores the large Brazilian, Polish, Pakistani, Chinese and other populations that are now Irish; also the multi-national workforces companies like Facebook and Google who need access to 20+ different languages to be found in a place like Dublin. Who Will Remember Us? Memorialising the Multicultural City is an inciteful chapter by Katrina Goldstone On Ethnic Legagy in Dublin's Future, New Visions for Ireland's Capital City (Ed. Lorcan Sirr). She carefully documents how the Jewish community (Ireland's longest established racialised minority) came to, and played a highly visible and important role in Dublin in C19 and C20. She makes the point that this ethnic group has been largely whitewashed from our history, and our view of what Irishness is. She qutoes Iain Sinclair ... "We excavate the history we need, bend the past to colize the present". "The Gathering" marketing team need to have a good look at their own age and cultural profile. Are they in touch with Ireland as it is now, or as it was then. The Irish diaspora isn't just about Boston or Sydney any more. Its a global network that extends to Shanghai, Buenos Aires, Gdansk and Karachi. It is really important to get the message across home and abroad that Ireland is (or can be) a pluralist, diverve country. Failte Ireland has a lot of good & smart people; its time for "the gathering" to reflect this.

Amid the squalid store-fronts of Thomas St, the smart facade of Mannings bakery shines forth like a beacon, a welcoming refuge from the hatchet-faced hawkers outside LeCool Dublin's review of Mannings on Thomas Street, D8, telling it how it is. http://dublin.lecool.com/dublin/en/41462

The Ministry of Festivals instructs towns to hold as many random events possible

Festivalisation (or Festivalization US spelling): the propogation of events of tenuous and vague social and communitarian meaning, in the interest of meaningless continuous amusement of adults.

There must be a Ministry (it sounds much more Orwellian than Department) at the heart of government, and there must have been an instruction (lets say Order #28X for a bit of drama)made about 3 years ago. How else can it be explained that local authorities (in Ireland anyway) have taken on the role of organising events to keep the populus amused. The only jobs being advertised on e-tenders these days are for events animators (apparently it has nothing to do with cartoons). So.. one day they're getting the Guards (Irish police) to batter anybody who wanted to sit down on the street for an old protest or slow down traffic, and next thing they're the biggest, funnest, sociable thing in town. But festivals are good right? They bring people into the town, they promote place and build community spirit. Who could not be for festivals? Why do local authorities now see themselves as festival promoters, and are allowed to spend significant public funds on events? Is the proportion of festivals we have to endure proportional to rises in unemployment and poverty? If and event is hosted in a public park area, it is the council who gets the rent, and the retailer who suffers from loss of business, because all their customers are in the fancy farmers market. So its a win-win for the Council: they get the PR and the money. So am I the most miserable person on the planet, that can't even like a festival? Well possibly, but the Ukulele Hooley in the People's Park was the last straw for me. I'm a greater admirer of people like David Engwicht... https://www.creative-communities.com, and Fred Kent at Project for Public Spaces www.pps.org. I'm fortunate enough to have heard both speak. Its also a different animal from "Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good" (U.S. Pavilion at this years 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale see urb.ie) to me these focus on the capacity and resiliance of communities, and the capacity to capture talent through projects and interventions in public space. This does involve partnership with Local Authorities. However, the whole point is that people working in partnership from the bottom-up can challenge establishments like roads departments about how we use our towns. And will also challenge how we live in our towns. If a festival becomes a symbol of corporate power or branding, who benefits? When Dublin City Centre was handed over to racing cars this year for a day, nobody could move around, and nobody did any business. By all means lets have events in urban areas, but lets let community groups and business associations have access to, or compete for the same funds local authorities get to do things their own way.

Projects without architects steal the show

You might partly describe the “Common Ground” title as a bid to imply some curatorial shift from architecture’s makers to users, but in the event that shift often becomes just another excuse for the usual hagiography

A pretty savage review of the architecture Venice biennale’s http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/12/arts/design/13th-venice-architecture-biennale-the-usual-hagiography.html?ref=arts

20 Things you can do on the High Street without shoppping

I really like this simple little presentation by Julian Dobson at Urban Pollinators (www.urbanpollinators.co.uk).

20 things you can do on the high street without shopping from Julian Dobson

Lance Armstrong and the Mahon Planning Tribunal

When Lance Armstrong announced he wasn't contesting charges that he used blood doping to achieve his "unbelievable" 7 Tour de France titles, there was for me no sense of justice or victory. It comes 13 years too late. It is practically irrelevant. It does nothing to address the wilful neglect of the governing bodies, the great athletes who's sporting careers were damaged, the bullying and outing of competitors who didn't play along with the EPO game, and in the case of Marco Pantani a tragic ending of a life through overdose. It has taken a generation change to clean out Armstrong and his cabal. It made me think of the Mahon Tribunal, published to much fanfare just a couple of months ago. Righteous indignation, victory and justice. The moral incarceration of Bertie Ahern, Flynn, Wright etc. etc. All a generation too late. Mahon: a judicial report that now sits on a shelf and brings no justice. Just as Lance got back on his bike, said don't worry and talked about his cancer work, everybody involved with Planning corruption has just got on with it. We can't go back and declare Ahern's election victories null and void, and install the #2 party belatedly. Even talk of a planning regulator has gone very quiet. What is clear is the idea of legal justice, where someone is tried and sentenced 10 years after the event is of little benefit to anyone, unless corrupt politicians and developers compensate Irish society for the billions of euro of damage done (of course thanks to Fiana Fail society is compensating the government and banks). Justice is an on-going project. It demands open governance, transparency and leadership. The planning system (with the check of An Bord Pleanala) is actually not too bad at this (although can still do better). The local government system of governance, which is supposed to balance the Executive with the Public is not so good. Sometimes organisations operating in the name of management which operates in the interest of the organisation (as opposed to the people and places they serve), can be just as damaging as a corrupt one. The priority for Local Government reform should not be efficiency (ie. number of Councils etc) but accountability and responsibility... every day.

Death by Nostalgia – What architecture can learn from archaeology.

Hugh Kavanagh challenges the prevailing view that conservation of historic structures is preferable to their restoration. The title of this piece “Death by Nostalgia” is a quote from Frank Zappa’s autobiography where he describes the continual recycling of styles in popular culture as stifling progress and innovation in contemporary music. This view has been common amongst the creative arts in the 20th century, where innovation and avant-garde is seen as superior and definitive. Architects have fallen into this way of thinking too with the result that a serious interest in architectural heritage has been seen as backward thinking. Amongst many in the modern creative arts, past artistic accomplishments are seen with patronising fascination like something from an alien culture, to be kept in glass cases in case of infection. Our separation from the past is something that society takes for granted today but this is a relatively new phenomenon. In the past, artistic progress was slow and methodical so we did not feel so alienated from our proceeding generation’s work. The 20th century has seen an infatuation with the future and in some way it has been archaeology which has benefitted by being an expression of the basic human need for us to feel in touch with our roots. The spark for the writing of this piece was when I recently came across an online discussion concerning the restoration of famous examples of Brutalist architecture which have fallen into disrepair. For the uninitiated, Brutalist architecture is a sub-genre of the modernist movement and is characterised by the use of plain mass concrete and simple geometry in tower blocks and shopping centres built throughout the world. (Fig. 1) Like modern art, the philosophy which underpins much of modernist architectural theory is a rejection of traditional and historic values in favour of a rational and scientific approach. So it seemed strange to me that buildings which were built to be disposable were being lauded for their historical value and should be preserved. Of course when I politely pointed out this paradox I got the usual patronising defensiveness and was told in no uncertain terms that I needed to learn more about modernism. I had simply pointed out (not in these words I might add) that to restore buildings like these would be like putting a paper plate in a dishwasher. Modernist architecture is often claimed by it’s supporters to be a more honest and pure form of architecture than the Victorian and Edwardian styles that proceeded it. But I think most of us can see that most modern buildings are just like any other modern consumer product; they are designed to look great at point of sale but they are not designed to be maintainable or repairable. Indeed this seemed to be the accepted view when I studied Architectural Technology in the 1990’s. There is a deliberate built-in obsolescence in modern architecture which results in most modern buildings being simply easier and cheaper to demolish and build again when they become run-down. This way of thinking is simply unsustainable in the long-term and after 100 years of modernism it is clear that modernism is simply the manifestation in architectural terms of the consumerism that has characterised much of the twentieth century. Worryingly and perversely, the philosophy which as led to the disposability of modernist architecture has had an unexpected negative effect on our approach to protecting historic structures too. All pre-20th century buildings are now consigned the past which the modernist movement sheared us away from. This has created an artificial barrier between architects today and their natural cultural inheritance, and so historical building remains are now generally treated like lifeless artefacts instead of viable structures with their conservation in-situ being the preferred choice over restoration. This approach is clearly set out in the treaty of Venice which was adopted by ICOMOS in 1965. This treaty was created to set down guidelines for the conservation and restoration of ancient monuments. Article 9 states that “the process of restoration ... must stop at the point where conjecture begins…any extra work must be distinct from the architectural composition and must bear a contemporary stamp” (Fig.2). It continues in article 12 which states “Replacements of missing parts must integrate harmoniously with the whole but at the same time must be distinguishable from the original so that restoration does not falsify the artistic or historic evidence”. But when it comes to modernist buildings, the accepted view by heritage groups like Docomomo is the complete opposite to the Treaty of Venice. In the case of modernist ruins, the total restoration of the building seems to be the norm with The Villa Savoye by Le Corbusier and the Barcelona Pavilion by Mies Van der Rohe being the prime examples. (Fig.3) So why the different approaches to our built heritage when restoration and rebuilding has for millennia been a normal part of the routine building maintenance? How is it that today that restoration seems to be acceptable for the modern but not the medieval? Why are we obsessed with trying to freeze buildings in time like this and who can judge exactly when architecture become archaeology? Is it because we have the technology and records to restore an early 20th C. building faithfully, but we have lost the know-how to restore a tower-house for example? A building like Villa Savoye never allowed for any maintenance or natural evolution so it is easy to say that such a building is supposed to look a certain way. On the other hand a medieval castle or timber-framed house was not built with the same rigid ideology of a modernist. It would have naturally evolved and was repaired and restored periodically over time. This is why the decision to restore a historic building is not as straight-forward as restoring a modernist building and why authorities are rightly cautious when making the decision for restoration. Recent work at Monkstown Castle and Kilcoe Castle both in Co. Cork (Figs. 4 & 5) show that restoration can be done very well, thanks greatly to progress in the field of buildings archaeology. The success of these projects make the views expressed in the Treaty of Venice look increasingly outdated. More importantly however, these examples show a return to a more sensitive restoration approach that not only conserves the archaeological integrity of the buildings but also reconnects us to the traditional system of natural growth and evolution of a building over its lifespan. Buildings archaeology is a relatively new specialisation and has grown in popularity and importance for a number of reasons. As modernist architectural theories have crumbled and society appreciates its architectural heritage more clearly, buildings archaeology has sought to satisfy the growing appetite for knowledge of our ancient structures. It has colonized the vacuum of technical knowledge left behind when architecture so brutally broke its ties with its past. And not for the first time, archaeologists have been able to answer questions where historians have failed. This is because they are uniquely adapted to identify the technical history of a building through their examination of evidence which most others would overlook. Buildings archaeologists are ideally placed to work with a growing portion of the architectural community which is trying to reclaim its sense of history and place. Modern architecture has committed a multitude if sins and so it’s not surprising that those charged with protecting our built heritage are rightly sceptical of architects and their ideas on restoration. (Fig.6) For example architecture has tried to reclaim its past with the pastiche of the post-modernist movement, but no-one wants a return to the Po-Mo buildings of the 1980’s with its ironic cutting-and-pasting of classical motifs. (Fig.7) And even today we can see countless examples of natural materials being plastered onto modernist boxes in a vain attempt to claim some link with a past based on craft and vocation. (Fig.8). These unfortunate examples show us that architecture is at least trying to find some sense of a past but that it is hopelessly out of touch and needs help. I believe that the main reason for the lack of understanding of built heritage amongst architects is because the traditional vocational system of architectural training was completely destroyed in the modernist mania of the 20th century. Without the foundation of tradition to underpin its convictions, architectural education is floundering badly as society has completely rejected its ideals. Despite its infamously high workload and drop-out rates, the architectural education system is not producing graduates with the skills or knowledge to produce buildings that we need or want. (Fig.9). It is a rigid system that can only produce graduates in it’s own image and for a profession which prides itself on innovation and free expression, it does not know how to handle anything outside of it’s narrowly defined logic. Architecture has an immensely rich heritage that stretches back millennia and for modernist architects to think that they could reject it all and start from scratch now seems laughably naïve. But this is exactly what happened. Modernist pioneers sold their priceless inheritance for short-term personal gain and in its place created convoluted contradictory theories that have shown to be as structurally sound as the average concrete tower block. It might have been forgivable if these theories were largely confined to the drawing board but instead there were taken up most enthusiastically by the most corrupt regimes the world has ever seen. Millions of people across to world have suffered because of this dreadful intellectual experiment and cultural cul-de-sac. Is it no wonder that modernism has been the architectural style of choice for most post war totalitarian rulers, from South America, to Central Africa to the USSR. I for one feel cheated by the way our collective architectural heritage was so irresponsibly cast aside. But what architects have lost, buildings archaeologists have gladly reclaimed, fishing countless untold treasures from the modernists reject pile. There is now a very small but very clear movement of neo-traditionalist architects spearheaded by organisations like INTBAU, and I laugh to myself to think that traditional architecture is being considered as the new avant-garde. Conservation has had a very important role in recording and understanding the heritage that was abandoned by the previous few generations. But I believe that sympathetic restoration is superior as it not only conserves a building but it also resuscitates it and gives it new purpose. Architects need to really listen to buildings archaeologists if they want to work together in the future but at the same time archaeologists need to be bold and to realise that conservation is not always enough. Restoration should be seen a huge opportunity for archaeologists to express and share their knowledge to those outside their own profession who don’t know what they’re missing! I for one have learned far more about buildings from archaeologists than from architects! For more or less a century, humanity largely turned its back on its past and it has been the archaeologists who have primarily stood in the firing line to protect endangered built heritage. No-one has a monopoly of ownership on we call heritage and we are simply guardians for the future generation who will inherit this unique gift. It can be argued that archaeologists have played the most important role in passing on this gift but now their role is now growing and expanding. Whether it is through food, craft or in this case architecture, we are re-establishing our links with a forgotten past; a past that is the only solid foundation from which we can move forward into the future. Modernism has had a profound effect on the way we build today and how we view buildings from the past. Modernism broke a link in the chain of architectural progression that had been passed on from generation to generation of builders. It broke the relationship we have with the past and consigned our architectural inheritance to the sterility of artefact, But buildings should not be treated as archaeological artefacts, and it’s about time we realised this and stopped trying to put building ruins into glass cases. Hugh Kavanagh trained as an architectural technician but has worked as a surveyor and illustrator in archaeology since 1996 forming his own company “Landmark Survey” in 2007. He is also a member of the International Network for Traditional Building and Urbanism. www.landmarksurvey.ie “Architecture - Choice or Fate” by Leon Krier “Exploding the myth of modern architecture” by Malcom Millais “Beauty” by Roger Scruton www.intbau.org

The Local Area Planning Guidelines & Manual are a good reason for not doing an LAP

If ever there was instrument to slow down the planning process, and add cost and bureaucracy its the LAP process as now described in the Guidelines and Manual published by the Dept. of Environment. However the Draft Guidelines fail to ask the most important question. Is doing an LAP the best way of solving problems and resolving issues? Big problems lie in the multi-disciplinary approach advocated. It is an approach that serves the professions and process, but not people and towns. Achieving all this professional representation, changes the conversation. We start talking about road capacities, geometries and traffic models. We focus on SUDs, drainage and water treatment. We focus on Energy Standards, contemporary architecture of our time, and landmark structures.... and loose focus on town planning. Have any of the LAPs set out in the Draft Manual actually worked? Kilkenny, Liberties, Robinstown, Mountjoy? Why are they regarded as good examples if they have not resolved the issues faced? If planning is to be truly evidence based, it should go far beyond basic demographics and land capacity zoning requirements. Evidence means we should learn from past failures. Failures that are dominated by traffic-engineering, and bad architecture that planners continually have to face. We should be learning from Christopher Alexander’s pattern language – an open-source code. An approach that allows plans to evolve over time, with a multitude of design inputs, and not just one comprehensive ‘vision’. This I believe is the great strength of planners. It is scandalous how planners have been relegated to the role of Project Manager in this LAP Draft. We are urban problem solvers, not project managers. Planning risks finding itself labelled as the profession that makes things difficult and complicated, wedded to process for process’s sake. We have already seen the RIAI President’s agenda that architecture should assume the lead role in plan-making. Its an approach that the Draft Guidelines and Manual does not discourage. Why don’t we have a planning-led discussion about how we can do things incrementally and sustainably? The Draft LAP Guidelines are on public display until 27th July.

Retail Planning Guidelines 2012 present opportunity for City and Town Centres, if Local Authorities change their game

The Retail Planning Guidelines 2012 were published on 1 May 2012 with commentary by Minister Phil Hogan on importance of vital and viable town centres for cities and towns. Minister for Planning and Housing Jan O’Sullivan talks about “refocusing towards plan-led development in addressing the needs of the retail sector by determining a proper evidence base of the need for retail development and ensuring a proactive approach in facilitating the meeting of those needs”. A lot of faith is placed in retail strategies, retail hierarchies , and sequential development while at the same time increasing convenience floor space caps in the interest of “both competitiveness in the retail sector and strong city and town centres.” So really nothing new in these principles from previous versions of the Guidelines. In practice this has been a mixed-bag. While the line has been held on some out-of-town convenience and shopping centres (generally by An Bord Pleanala), the amount of floorspace provided for in the retail strategies, according to hierarchy, location and type have had a negative effect on town centres (as far as anyone can tell given that theres no information collected on this – and certainly not in the Forfas report. What is new is the five key policy objectives that must guide planning authorities in addressing retail development issues: 1. Ensuring that retail development is plan-led; 2. Promoting city/town centre vitality through a sequential approach to development; 3. Securing competitiveness in the retail sector by actively enabling good quality development proposals to come forward in suitable locations; 4. Facilitating a shift towards increased access to retailing by public transport, cycling and walking in accordance with the Smarter Travel strategy; and 5. Delivering quality urban design outcomes. These objectives present a much stronger focus on town centres, and Objective 5 in particular really places an onus on the quality of development. Of course, Objective 3 (the Asda/Walmart clause) could be used to go a different direction altogether (in the interest of competitiveness of course). The Guidelines come down heavy on Retail Warehouse Parks, which are struggling, and looking to broaden their use-base to fill units, yet remain grey enough in the categorisation of comparison goods to require testing to An Bord Pleanala and possibly the High Court. Its all very well to talk the talk on Vitality and Viability, but a lot of hard work needs to be done on this. There is a huge information-gap on town centres, on all the important matters referred to Annex 2. This can’t be left to planning consultants to address in Retail Impact Statements. Rather, town centre health checks or indicators need to be removed entirely from the context of development proposals, as an open-source of information for town and city centres to be able to say – this is where we are – and here is an action plan for what we can do. This requires a huge change in mind-set for Local Authorities and Business Associations/Chambers of commerce. It requires a proactive approach and leadership; not the kind where a County Manager comes up with a hobby-hourse initiative or development, but leadership across public and private sectors working in partnership. The Design Guidelines attached to Guidelines are irrelevant, and sum up a problem in mind-set... its all about the big new development, an architectural statement or the big man in town who is going to come to the rescue. This is the opposite of maintenance, management and care. Its down to political will and leadership, and a culture that either wants to aspire to quality living places or play to the lowest common denominator. Some cities and towns will follow the quality route, and many will continue to wowed by the prospect of the next big thing.

Ireland needs a pro-city planning strategy not more regional planning

There were some interesting presentations at this years Irish Planning Institute Conference in Kilkenny at the end of April. Hendrik W van der Kamp from the School of Spatial Planning, DIT gave an interesting paper on The City State as an Urban Model – a case study of supply based planning. He highlights some really important analysis on urban trends in Ireland. Firstly, he finds that the National Spatial Strategy (NSS) has been ineffective with regard to designated Gateway towns. In 2011 he finds that “Of 10 counties with gateway towns only 5 row above national average. Of 16 counties without gateway towns only 5 grow below national average”. He also notes an ambiguous trend in urbanisation. The Irish Urban Population in 2011 is 62% (60.7 % in 2006, 59.6% in 2002 and 58.1% in 1996). However, he also quotes Eurostat (March 2012) “In nearly all Member States, it was in urban regions that the population grew most rapidly. Ireland was an exception with growth in its rural population, while the urban population declined.” This reflects, that outside Dublin inner city wards, all other major towns and cities have experienced decline in their cores. The trend of urbanisation growth reflects massive suburbanisation on Greenfield sites. Van der Kamp cites the statistic that thepProportion of people living in cities > 100,000 pop decreased from 31.2% in 1996 to 29.2% in 2006. His conclusions are that we are not achieving compact cities and we are not achieving cities of scale (proportion of population in cities over 100,000 is decreasing). Also see recent Life After Roundabouts post ‘Are Lending Institutions getting it wrong?’ This analysis is hugely important for the Irish economy, and strategic planning policy. This really should be setting the alarm bells ringing in the Customs House. There is a strong body of research from the likes of Geoffrey West, Richard Florida and Edward Glaeser that says city scale and size really matter! The bigger a city is, the richer it is, the more money people make, it attracts better people and companies and the more influential that place is. So where we have a strategic policy framework that positively supports anti-urban development (Rural Housing Guidelines), and we pursue a path of anti-urban economic investment (IDA) , the result is declining cities, declining wealth and an increasingly uncompetitive country. Strong urban places are synonymous with strong economies. While many policy documents including the NSS contain pro-urban statements, its simply not working when applied to County Council administrations. There is an urgent need to go back to the drawing board. This must involve linking a very different Rural Housing Policy with a simplified National Spatial Strategy. Its time to have a big re-think about urban regeneration strategies pursued over the last 15 years, and the tools we use. Even before the recession hit, PPP was an abject failure. Local Area Plans often only add bureaucracy, costs and delays. The national rural agenda pursued by all governments is damaging cities, and damaging Ireland’s economy. I’m not sure about Van der Kamps conclusions that Ireland should essentially adopt a single City State approach to Strategic Planning. There is undoubtedly potential outside the capital. In either case, the Irish economy needs stronger cities. Stronger cities need stronger City Governance and better leadership, focussed on city economies and their citizens. Regional authorities simply don’t do this; its not their mandate. Rather, the mayoral governance model presents a tried and tested approach to city focussed planning.

Roundabout wins Smarth Growth Civic Space ward by EPA in Us. http://www.epa.gov/dced/awards/sg_awards_publication_2011.htm #irony

Mahon and Zoning

The two words are inextricably linked. The Tribunal of Inquiry into Certain Planning Matters & Payments aka The Mahon Tribunal delivered its final report on 22nd March. Now that the dust has settled on the findings of the Tribunal, it’s about the right time to think what good has it done for planning? It is notable that one of the only recommendations Mahon J. came up with, was that there should be an independent planning regulator.

If there is one thing planning is not short-on, its regulations and regulators. But it fails to hit the obvious point. All the controversy surrounding allegations of political corruption and impropriety concern zoning.

Zoning is such a simple concept, that even politicians (not all!), who haven’t a clue or a care about what good planning means for their constituents(present and future), are able to understand it. A local Council decision can change the development rights on a piece of land from grazing cattle to building houses. Apart from capital gains tax, the landowner walks away a lottery winner every time.

The ‘zoning’ of land became such a momentous a decision, that in an overly simplistic construction industry, too much importance has been associated with it, and therefore too much monetary value attributed to it. Zoning created hope value, which created land-banking. It fundamentally skewed the real value of land, what it is worth, and what it can produce (either for farmers or developers). It feeds speculation, not investment.

Land Use Zoning is not a good planning tool. It is an unhappy marriage of post-war modernism and garden-city utopianism. Its clumsy, it doesn’t allow towns to grow organically, street by street or square by square. It is comprehensive and not incremental. It creates mono-use suburban areas, with a paucity of services, variety, interest and beauty, served and segregated by over-engineered distributor roads. This is not a personal opinion. People like Leon Krier, Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, INTBAU , Congress for New Urbanism, Congress for European Urbanism and 'A Vision of Europe' have explained it much better, and in more detail.

The introduction of Core Strategies in the 2010 Planning Act (with de-zoning) and Strategic Environmental Assessment provide for a much improved regulatory environment. However, in many ways Development Plans are still focussing on ‘what use, where?’. When a Council seeks to provide jobs it’s solution has been to zone land for industrial or commercial use – build a business park for the IDA. For urban growth – zone fields for housing and retail parks. Census 2011 shows Ireland is still growing. Zoning doesn’t provide answers to fundamental questions of how a place should grow, how will it look and feel, and who will live there. Government (both central and local) should place zoning to one side. The focus should be on creating an enabling environment for small scale/low cost interventions to take place. Perhaps we need a regulator for de-regulation?

World Heritage site or bungalows......

Sunday’s Irish Independent reported the shocking scandal [irony!] “Locals lose out in ‘dead zone’ of heritage centre -Bru na Boinne visitors bypass Slane — traffic goes straight through” What audience does Indo journalist Jerome Reilly or his editor think they are serving.

Even pump parish politics operates on a much higher plane that this quality of reporting. It’s as if planning was enforced on the community by a foreign state for somebody else’s benefit.

The article does not even mention the World Heritage status of Bru na Boinne, and the rationale for planning restrictions. There is no attempt to consider the importance of heritage for this and future generations as being even an equivocal consideration. Rather it reads as the local farmer versus the heritage centre and the bunch of foreigners it buses in:

"Gabriel Mullen lives in Dowth. He says that the OPW and the other authorities have a stranglehold on the area. His daughter Sarah has been trying for seven years to get planning permission to build on the site beside the family home, without success.

“They are slowly but surely killing off this area. We are being treated as second-class citizens,” he says.

Cllr Wayne Harding says the world heritage status was now toxic in its immediate environment.

“I have met farmers who cannot give their children a site for a house, and community organisations who have to meet with government officials before they apply for very minor planning applications. The villages of Duleek, Donore and Slane get no economic kickback from 230,000 visitors a year that are right on their doorstep.

…. “There is an effort to ethnically cleanse the area,” Gabriel Mullen says."

Could it be that missing Father Ted episode….

Here’s a novel idea. Build on individual house plots in the village, where your children can be near facilities, amenities and their friends, thereby preserving more land for farming, and less pollution of the land through septic-tanks. Problem solved.

Are the lending institutions getting it wrong again?

According to the lending institutions (banks and NAMA) apartments are a non-runner. It is widely known in planning circles that apartment schemes will not get finance, good permissions are not being built-out, and that the institutions are telling local authorities to lower the densities. However, there is a suspicion that this ‘policy’ is based on a hunch rather than sound analysis. 3 sets of information out this week, suggest that this the lenders are getting it wrong. i.e. the Think Dublin Demoraphic Report, Social Housing Waiting lists and the Residential Property Price Index (RPPI).

The ‘Demographic Trends in Dublin’ Report came out this week, launched by the Lord Mayor, Andrew Montague. It is part of the Dublin City Council – Think Dublin! Research Series, by Declan Redmond and Brendan Williams (UCD), Brian Hughes (DIT) & Jamie Cudden, Office of International Relations and Research, Dublin City Council. This report is really important. It’s proper research, based on the latest census results (2011) with some sharp analysis. At risk of copying the entire Executive summary.....

Population growth in Dublin City over the period 1991 to 2011 has lagged significantly behind national population growth and growth in the other GDA local authorities. In the State the population increased by 30 per cent from 1991 to 2011, but by only 9.8 per cent in Dublin City. These figures reflect the rapid outward expansion of population and housing during the period of the residential property boom.

Dublin City’s share of the Dublin region’s population declined from 47 to 41 per cent between 1991 and 2011. By contrast, however, Fingal has seen its share of the region’s population increase from 15 to 22 per cent over the same period. South Dublin’s share of the population has remained static at 21 per cent while Dún Laoghaire Rathdown’s share has fallen from 18 to 16 per cent.

In contrast to the sprawl and dispersion of population described above, the inner city of Dublin has seen strong population growth. Between 1991 and 2011 the population of Dublin City increased by just 9.8 per cent. However, in the inner city there was an increase of 62% in the same period. This increase reflects the high level of apartment building in the inner city from the late 1980s onwards.

In the rest of the city there was a decrease of 1.2% between 1991 and 2011, with many electoral divisions seeing a loss of population. “ Given strong national and regional increases in population in this period, this loss of population is remarkable”.

In 2006 the average household size in Dublin City was 2.50 compared with 2.8 for the GDA. Average household size has fallen consistently since 1991. Average household size in the state has fallen from 3.14 in 1996 to 2.81 in 2006 (This was predicted long-ago in the DTI Strategy).

Almost 30% of households in Dublin City are one person households as compared with 17% in Fingal and 16% in South Dublin. By contrast, Dublin City has a much lower rate of households comprised of husband and wife with children. Only 19% of households in Dublin City were husband and wife with children compared with 33% in Dun Laoghaire, 36% in Fingal and South Dublin and almost 40% in Meath and Wicklow.

The Report notes that Eurostat projects the Irish population is to increase from 4.5 million to 6.5 million between 2010 and 2060, a 47% increase. The UK is projected to increase from 62 million in 2010 to 79 million over the same period, an increase of 27%. The German population, by contrast, is expected to fall by 15.3 million between 2010 and 2060, a decrease of 19%.

Given the severity of the recession many commentators had predicted that net emigration had returned. However, the preliminary 2011 Census figures show that there was net positive in-migration of 118, 650 in the period 2006-2011. This does not, of course, mean that there was no emigration out of the country but that more people moved into Ireland than left it.

So in contrast to many common perceptions, sprawl and dispersion have continued and the older suburbs have declined, but the inner city has done well.

Social Housing
On Tuesday the Irish Times reported that The National Asset Management Agency has drawn up a list of just over 2,000 houses and apartments which it will make available for social housing over the coming months..http://bit.ly/zDocbv.
It is notable that just 18 apartments, or less than 1 per cent of the overall total, have been identified as suitable properties in the South Dublin County Council area (reflecting their Council policy to restrict apartments below national guidance levels). By contrast, it noted 484 apartments or almost 25 per cent of the total are based in the Dublin City Council area. Fingal and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown account for a further 408 houses and apartments, or 20 per cent of the total housing units. The big shock is the statement that the “Latest data shows the number of households requiring social housing reached a record 98,000 in 2011, up from 58,000 three years ago. All indications are that the numbers are continuing to rise”

RPPI
The Residential Property Price Index this week headlined that house prices in Dublin are 55% lower than at their height in early 2007, and apartments 59% lower.
However, this doesn’t tell the full story. The RPPI shows that the only area that experienced growth in 2011 (albeit minor) was in the apartment sector. There was 0.6% growth in the 3 months up to December. In Dublin there was 3.7% growth in the 3 months up to December and 2.4% growth in the 3 months up to January 2012.
The conclusion from this is that there is very little difference between the market performance of houses and apartments, and if anything apartments may possibly have turned a corner.

Waiting lists of the order of 100,000 units is not about some down-trodden minority that should only be catered for by subsidised housing. It suggests that the wrong type or the wrong tenure of housing has been built.

If the population needs averages households off 2.5 persons, and where the only population growth has been in the city centre apartment market (or sprawl) why is there an insistence on the good old semi-D? Does it reflect the age and status of people making these decisions or a lack of information? The whole idea of the original residential density guidelines was to make housing more affordable. This is a challenge for the market not the public sector. At the moment, it seems that the lending institutions are ignoring these important macro and micro trends and signals, and telling the market, what they think it needs.