Madam, - Ken McDonald's comment (February 14th) on Mark FitzGerald's proposal to encourage certain types of property owners in Dublin to relocate to their home districts raises the old issue of a pro-development fast-track planning strategy as a method of meeting our housing challenges. This has long been the policy of many people in the property and building sectors.
To my mind it treats housing as a commodity similar to coffee, tea, wheat, lead or zinc which traditionally have responded to market supply and demand. It is to be hoped that no Government will give into such pressures.
Creating new residential communities is among the more important challenges facing any generation. These cannot be provided as part of a fast-track process. The issue of inventiveness, quality, sustainability and good craftsmanship are all matters of great importance which too often are overlooked in the demands to increase supply.
New homes and residential communities will last 100 years or more and, over this period, hopefully evolve into special places serving the generations to come. If achieving higher standards at the planning stage takes more time, then so be it. It is worth getting the fundamental issues resolved rather than fast-tracking the process.
We need talented and committed professionals - planners, architects, urban designers, sociologists, community specialists, to be involved - more so than marketing and advertising sectors.
There has been more housing built in Ireland over the past decade than ever. However, layout, design and quality are still on the whole disappointing. The large housing estates developed on the outskirts of most towns are all essentially built to the same formula.
The provision and imaginative integration of important social facilities, such as schools, community facilities, creches, pre-school centres, local offices, shops, etc., are too often not addressed. There are rarely meaningful connections to the historic centres such as cycleways, pedestrian priority routes, amenity linkages. There is little sense of "place-making". Generally, such schemes are all designed to cater for the so-called "market" and markets deal essentially with profits.
The continued growth of residential communities is set to continue for the foreseeable future. The new policies on higher densities should allow the planning authorities to trade off additional housing units for higher standards of public realm layout, design and building quality. Planning authorities should, with the backing of Government, develop policies to tackle strategic land acquisition in or near existing centres. They can then lease this land to builders with focused design and sustainability conditions.
Apartment living is going to become a more important aspect of urban life. We should be wise enough now to learn from our cousins in Europe how to provide high quality and sustainable apartment living and should now establish imaginative guidelines for their building and design. We must not be stampeded into the fast-track lane. Quality all round, even if it takes a bit longer, is the only sustainable and civilised approach to implementing our housing programme in the years to come. - Yours, etc.,
PATRICK SHAFFREY,
Architect and Town Planner,
Lower Ormond Quay,
Dublin 1.