There is increasing evidence that applications for higher density housing schemes may have a beneficial effect on the suburban landscape.
Applications before local authorities in the Dublin area appear to be eschewing the much-criticised rows of semi-detached houses with gardens front and rear. A trawl of the recent applications indicated that property developers, in going for a higher density, are putting more thought into the size and range of houses and apartments they are building. For years, architects and town planners have argued in favour of a mix of house types, which in turn creates a social mix among those of different age groups and different income brackets.
Where once a greenfield site at Glenamuck Road, Carrickmines, in south Co Dublin, would have seen nothing but rows of standard three-bed semis, most likely identical to other housing built elsewhere in the county, a current application is very different.
Lynngrove Developments, with an address at Waterloo Road, Dublin 4, has asked Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council for planning permission for an imaginative scheme of four-bed and five-bed houses, two-bed terraced houses and apartments in varying sizes.
Envisaged are three four-bedroom houses of two storeys each, 11 five-bedroom houses and four two-bedroom terraced houses which have provision for a third-bedroom in the roof space.
There will be three one-bedroom apartments in an end-of-terrace building, part of three blocks of apartments in total. One block will be two-storey with a third level incorporated in the roof space. A three-storey block, again with an extra level incorporated in the roof space, will house two-bed apartments, some with studies.
A third block will be two-storey, again with a third-level incorporated in the roof space. It will comprise 12 two-bed apartments with an entrance to Glenamuck Road.
Another greenfield site in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown area of south Co Dublin is the subject of a similar example of better design. This is for a residential development at Enniskerry Road, Stepaside, in the name of Liberty Homes, with an address at Herbert Street, Dublin 2.
The proposal is for the typical 24 four-bed detached houses, 13 five-bed detached houses and 25 three-bed terraced houses. But it also includes three one-bed apartments in an end-of-terrace block, and three blocks containing 64 apartments of varying sizes and, of course, prices.
This form of better mix could help to reverse a settlement pattern that led to problems in the past. A generation that grew up in Donnybrook moved out to Mount Merrion to establish their own homes. In turn, they saw their children move out to Shankill and onwards into Wicklow. This was repeated in the north and west of the Dublin as the city expanded, resulting in vast estates in neighbouring counties, where the residents lived far from their families.
The inner suburban residents grew older, and an absence of smaller, more affordable housing or apartments denied them suitable room to trade down and remain in the areas where they grew up.
These current planning applications may be inspired by the higher densities which result in additional margins, but the fact remains that better social design is a by-product. One only has to look at London, which has a population of eight million people within 25 miles of its centre, and compare that with Dublin, which has a population of just one million people within 25 miles of its centre. Dublin densities have a long way to rise yet.
