10 things planning should do:3

Manage the town as a priority

Planning Authorities’ primary task is 'development management' or development control as it used to be called. However, this is only managing the changes that other people want to make. Town management should be the priority, and resources reallocated to this task. This is not necessarily making local plans or master plans but focuses on implementation and making things happen. If it is the vision of a local authority to make a town better (vitality, viability etc) then they have to do things to make it happen. Approaches include Town Centre Managment Partnerships, Business Improvement Districts, Tax Incentive Financing, Local Development Vehicles etc, extaordinary temporal rate increases, or just shaking up budgets to redirect expenditure.

10 things planning should do: 2

Be proactive:

Local Authorities and in particular County Managers need to set the tone for planning and development. We're not talking about the fancy introduction to the developement plan; but the things they say and do - corporate strategies - and strategic messages that affect every action of the institution. Most thinking is about 20 years out of date, and when they do talk about sustainability or the latest buzz – ‘smart planning’ , its linguistic delusion but little else. An organisation doesn't become 'smart' by giving a new label to the things it does and always has done. What County Manager has come out and said they want to have the most cycle lanes per person in the EU in their town, or that they want to dedicate their town centre to pedestrians, or that they won’t consider any new hypermarkets or business parks on the edge of town? Who is saying we must take the lead in reassembling the town? We need to raise the bar, be ahead of the curve, and lead!

10 things planning should do

I want to set down some thoughts on things we should be doing (particularly in Irish urban planning), to contribute more effectively, and have a positive effect on urban environments through our actions. Over next 10 days I'm going to list the 10 things planning should do, according to me. Some may be obvious, some disagreeable, but would appreciate any feedback. Here we go:

1.Deal with the present

-‘Now is the time to plan for the future’ (or words to such effect) is a well-worn motto of many a planning consultancy at the moment. How fortunate for these experts to have such foresight, and know what lies ahead! (credit to David Engwicht here) Planners (‘the profession’) can’t be blamed for looking toward the next economic upturn, because the previous period has been so kind. However, those halcyon days are gone, and we need fresh approaches to deal with the crisis.
-What development plan faces the challenges of the next 1 to 5 years, not the next 20? Development Plans are increasingly becoming monolithic documents, conceived in red tape, where any life support for innovation or creativity, is sucked out in the course of the arduous process of getting them adopted. So, what are we doing now ... about now? How do we encourage investment, innovation, improvements, autonomy + the economy.
-We have to stop pretending this can be put on the long-finger. We have to take responsibility for making things happen, and make the system work – not work the system.

National Spatial Strategy ignored?

Further proof that I occasionally read newspapers. The good folk of the DoEHLG were in with an Oireachtas Cttee telling them .. well more bad news, with the publication of the National Spatial Strategy Update and Outlook Report (which doesn't seem to be available online?!).

Certain bodies have been ignoring the spatial strategy. http://tinyurl.com/3xzlzpf Never mind Fianna Fail decentralisation (locate government departments in FF constituency policy) or rural housing guidelines instigated under then minister for Environment, Dick Roche. The report also highlights depopulation of urban areas (ie central Cork or Limerick). So all in all, we have a good policy framework (whatever Skeehan says), there is a system out there with no interest in doing things properly. So step to recovery #1 - do what the plans say they're going to do in the fancy introduction...

Bray developers lucky their Permission was delayed

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.

Dunnes boost for Main Street

Dunnes Stores have been granted permission by An Bord Pleanala to revamp their DunLaoghaire store http://tinyurl.com/28qm4y5 The scheme provides for some 5,440sq.m. of retail space. This is a big space. It shows that high street units can be adpated, and redeveloped where the landlord is willing to be proactive and create the right sort of space. Development of this nature is important in that it counters typcial arguments that modern retail formats cannot be facilitated in town centres. I sense a future post on the Sequential Test...

Strategic Infrastructure Act in tatters?

A big decision from An Bord Plenala as reported in Irish Times today http://tinyurl.com/39y2kmb. The Board have refused permission for a 50 acre expansion of Dublin Port and to add insult to injury have a look at the appendix to the decision! They're awarded costs of approx. €100k to themselves (on top of the €100k planning fee) and awared €9K each to the opposing groups. This is of course on top of the 100s of thousands the applicant will have spent on design and consultancy fees. The 2006 Strategic Infrastructure Act was designed to streamline and fastrack projects of national importance. So on a day when enquiries into the irish banking crisis round on the house of cards created around development speculation, a real project facilitating trade, construction jobs and investment is given the KO on the basis that the applicant did not “adequately establish that the proposal would not adversely affect both the integrity of this SPA and the natural heritage of Dublin Bay”. The decision does not even conclude that there would be a adverse impact. Just imagine this happening in Europort,NL? So how will we get Strategic Infrastructure for future Energy, Transport, communications,renewable power (something on the scale of the Spirit of Ireland project), that need to be the backbone of economic recovery? It seems that the Strategic Infrastructure Act isn't part of the equation.