Remember the classic Irish joke about someone asking for directions to a desired destination and being told “if I were you, I wouldn’t start from here”. Sounds like the Irish planning system, doesn’t it?
Planning here seems to be at variance with – at the very top – the grandiose, aspirational yet vague national plans for development, including housing and infrastructure to cope with a population surge of up to one million by 2040.
Then, below, we have things like the semi-state sector, devolved bodies and infrastructure providers, regional bodies and local authorities supposed to deliver the lofty visions such as those contained in the National Planning Framework 2040.
And they don’t align.
Hey, anyone ever thought about a fixer? Maybe a planning czar, if such a thing were ever feasible?
Hmm, tried that?
Enter veteran Irish architect Tony Reddy of Reddy Urbanism + Design, who in a recent construction seminar slated an outdated ‘legacy’ planning system as a central barrier to resolving the housing crisis. Apart from the human cost of homelessness and strains in the housing crisis, he pointed to international capital investment and the IDA’s FDI strategy being undermined, and barriers created by planning uncertainty.
Instead of an integrated planning system, one that’s proactive rather than reactive, embarking on a planning application in Ireland is “akin to entering a sniper’s alley, where risk abounds in every direction,” said the battle-hardened architect whose firm Reddy U + A has been involved in many major masterplans – including ones commissioned for urban Cork’s south dock/Tivoli promised lands, St Kevin’s for the LDA and Kinsale Road for Cairn.
Bord Pleanála’s planning refusal for Gouldings to develop port facilities at Marino Point in Cork Harbour “is a graphic example of the failure of our discretionary planning system. Despite being located in Cobh, the impact of this decision will be felt most harshly in the city centre as the proposed development at Marino Point would pave the way for the construction of 1,300 apartments in Cork’s South Docklands and approximately 4,500 residences at Tivol,” said Mr Reddy.
Noting Ireland continues to tweak a model inherited from our UK neighbours, Tony Reddy labelled the Irish planning model as “inefficient and sclerotic and compares unfavourably with planning in the European Union, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. Our discretionary, ‘case-by-case’ model may have been appropriate in the 1960s and 1970s, but it is no longer fit for purpose and is a key contributory factor to our growing housing emergency.
“Instead of an outdated model producing chronic housing shortages, opaque rental markets, delayed infrastructure delivery, investor withdrawal, and mounting social pressure on both urban and rural communities, we could have a proven European model of an integrated planning system, where local governments take a leadership role in pre-designing urban areas with clear zoning, infrastructure layouts, street networks, public amenities, and sustainability measures – all before a single building permit is issued.”
The concept of Urban Development Zones (UDZs) could address ” most, if not all, of our current planning problems,” if implemented to include: early public consultation and improved communication; three-dimensional masterplans to clearly communicate scale and form of development; appeals to be addressed at masterplan stage and – controversially – “certainty that compliant planning applications cannot be appealed”.
This front-loading and prioritising of UDZs would bring “greater clarity for citizens, developers, and policymakers, and a framework to help deliver Government housing targets.” Cork is well placed to take a share of the up to 20 UDZ sites which could be designated in 2025, delivering masterplans for public consultation, along with a reformed judicial review process and implementing Accelerated Infrastructure Taskforce recommendations.
“If we persist in attempting to meet our housing and infrastructure needs via our antiquated discretionary planning system, failure is a certainty. The time has come for Ireland to embrace exemplary European planning practice for our neighbourhoods, towns and cities.”