The absence of a "planning-led" approach to the massive development proposed for Spencer Dock, in the heart of Dublin's docklands area, was "most unsatisfactory", one of the city's senior planners admitted.
Giving evidence yesterday on the seventh day of An Bord Pleanala's public inquiry into the £1.2 billion project, the deputy city planning officer, Mr John Martin, said an area action plan should have been drawn up for the 51-acre CIE-owned site.
However, by the time the development consortium, led by Treasury Holdings, decided to seek planning permission in late 1998, the design and layout had reached an advanced stage and Dublin Corporation was left with no time to prepare a draft action plan.
While some modifications were made after meetings with the design team, including Mr Kevin Roche, "no fundamental changes were made because the developers made it clear that they were unable to reduce the scale of the proposal below six million sq ft".
Mr Martin said it was clear to the corporation's planners that the "excessive scale" of development in terms of bulk and height would result in "significant adverse impacts" on the city skyline, on adjoining residential areas and within the development.
The proposed two-storey podium across much of the site would add to the bulk and height, rendering the public realm less accessible, creating an unattractive environment at street level and inhibiting flexible phasing of future development.
Although the planners had objected to the inclusion of this podium, Mr Roche had "strongly defended its value in urban design terms and, in any event, it appeared to be required by the developers to accommodate a very substantial amount of onsite parking".
Mr Martin said the lack of a street grid and of variety of uses at street level were also unsatisfactory, while the provision of some 3,000 high-rise apartments with little or no private open space was "not conducive to the establishment of a sustainable residential community".
Asked by the presiding inspector, Mr Des Johnson, if all these disadvantages would not have warranted a refusal, Mr Martin said the planners had "no serious quarrel" over the mix of uses; they were primarily concerned to reduce its bulk and scale.
When he was asked whether the planning of a "very significant new city quarter" should be done without an action plan, the deputy city planning officer said it was "a most unsatisfactory way of dealing with it".
Before deciding to grant partial planning permission, Mr Johnson put it to him that the corporation was facing a "chicken and egg scenario", in the absence of agreement on a cross-river rail link and a detailed study on building heights in the city.
"In an ideal world, it would be nice to have all these things available," Mr Martin said. But the corporation was faced with a planning application and had to make a decision. There was also a consensus that this was the right site for the National Conference Centre.
Referring to the scheme's plot ratio - the gross floor area of its buildings divided by the site area - he disputed the developers' contention that this would work out at 2.67 to one, noting they had included public roads, campshires and waterbodies.
Their calculations, which he accepted were made in good faith, also excluded the two levels of car-parking beneath the podium, which would add 81,000 sq m to the total, giving a plot ratio of four to one for the southern part of the site.
Mr Martin said anyone could see from the 1:1,000 scale model of the area stretching from Liberty Hall to the Point Depot, requested by An Bord Pleanala, that the bulk and height of the Spencer Dock scheme were significantly greater than the Custom House Docks.
The developers' planning consultant, Mr Tom Phillips, said he stood over their assessment, adding that they were not involved in "cloak-and-dagger, smoke-and-mirrors" calculations. But Mr David Healy, representing local residents, said the board should do its own sums.
