The new Tallaght town centre masterplan should put some shape on its development, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
Tallaght was never really planned - it just happened. Colours were inked on a map, with industry here and housing there, and lines drawn for a rigid grid of distributor roads.
Landowners made a fortune - not just in Fortunestown, but all over the place - when their land was rezoned and the cement-mixers moved in.
The same was true of Tallaght town centre. For years, the land designated for its development lay fallow, depriving a rapidly-growing population of basic amenities.
Even when it finally got under way, much of what was built consisted of large, shed-like structures surrounded by surface car parking and palisades fences.
The Garda station - known locally as "the Ranch" - was among the town centre's first buildings. It was followed, eventually, by the Square shopping centre, then the county hall and library, the hospital, the Civic Theatre, a couple of hotels and, more recently, an explosion of development amid a forest of tower cranes.
An integrated area plan attempted to put some shape on what was happening and succeeded in doing so, at least to some extent, with the aid of Government tax incentives. This plan is now being refined and improved by South Dublin County Council with its draft local area plan for the town centre, published today.
What the plan aims to do, in effect, is to turn the middle of Tallaght into something that resembles a town centre, with buildings laid out along streets and squares. The emphasis now is on high-quality urban design and the creation of civic spaces, as well as on developing family-sized apartments to counter population decline.
Therein lies the real irony. More than a generation has grown up in Tallaght and it is only now, with the population dropping due to reductions in household size (the empty nest syndrome, as it is called), that a town centre is finally taking shape. So one of the aims of the latest plan is to make space for more people.
But South Dublin County Council senior planner Paul Hogan admitted that it is facing strong opposition from older residents of Tallaght who have seen the area develop in a haphazard way and fear more intensive development. "We're trying to introduce measures in the plan that address some of their concerns," he said.
Resistance to change - any change at all - has become commonplace throughout the Dublin area, and Tallaght is no exception. But if better use is to be made of existing facilities such as schools, where enrolments have fallen by up to 24 per cent in the past 10 years, Tallaght will have to be re-populated with young families.
The planners are genuinely trying to increase the population, which is why their plan puts an emphasis on the development of larger apartments in the town centre zone, to appeal to younger couples.
South Dublin County Council deserves credit for raising the bar by insisting on the provision of children's play areas within new residential schemes as well as a dedicated on-site concierge/caretaker apartment and other facilities such as managed community meeting spaces. Only time will tell whether it succeeds in breaking the mould.