Planning & Tall Buildings in Dublin

Idbatterim · 19-08-2015 4:07pm

an article in todays IT, about new docklands developments, total joke, more absolute rubbish by the sounds of it, more suited to a small provincial city than Dublin which is bursting at the seems "again"!

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/a-new-dawn-for-the-dublin-docklands-1.2321329

cgcsb · 19-08-2015 4:43pm

9 storey squat. Of course we knew this suburban office park stuff was coming, it was set out in the "SDZ"

Idbatterim · 19-08-2015 6:24pm

9 storey squat. Of course we knew this suburban office park stuff was coming, it was set out in the "SDZ"

the €450,000,000 development is 7 stories!

going on the lowest of standards, which we must here, but at least the 2 landmark towers will be 19/20 storeys...

Schadenfreudia · 19-08-2015 6:45pm

cgcsb wrote: »

9 storey squat. Of course we knew this suburban office park stuff was coming, it was set out in the "SDZ"

Hey!

We have buildings less squat than that way out here in Sandyford! (Though they are a source of relentless local angst, mostly by IT-reading folk living in the Mausoleum (aka Dun Laoghaire's old coastal core) who can't even see them unless they travel there

At the last review of the CDP they introduced new height restrictions so shocked :eek: were they at the sight of 15 storey "towers"....

cgcsb · 20-08-2015 12:08pm

We're in the middle of a culture change from rural to urban. Unfortunately we're doing this 200 years after the rest of the industrialised world, which means a lot more kicking and screaming.

D.L.R. · 20-08-2015 6:36pm

cgcsb wrote: »

We're in the middle of a culture change from rural to urban. Unfortunately we're doing this 200 years after the rest of the industrialised world, which means a lot more kicking and screaming.

The politics is lagging behind the reality, that's the problem. Urbanisation is happening, its real, and its unavoidable. But Irish govts don't embrace it, probably because our party system is still so dependent on the rural vote. The prev govt wilfully ignored it.

Idbatterim · 21-08-2015 9:05am

is one of the issues currently, that there isnt a shortage of available land in the docklands right now i.e. sites and as soon as the ones currently undeveloped, have been developed, that the price of land will increase substantially due to increased scarcity and there will be far higher land prices in future, leading to a need for higher density, that dublin city council wont be able to worm their way out of?

cgcsb · 21-08-2015 10:30am

Dublin City Council's policy to have people commuting from Kildare and go homeless is not going to change in the short term. Modern structures are not to be visible from the georgian vistas, as that would 'spoil the view' for people who can afford to live in those areas. We cannot exceed 8 storeys, even in the Docklands SDZ because of vistas or because of the shadows that may be cast on terraced houses built in the 1990's in Dublin 1 of all places.

When we mature as a nation we may sling these people out of government and local government, but not before then.

FreudianSlippers · 21-08-2015 11:06am

cgcsb wrote: »

Dublin City Council's policy to have people commuting from Kildare and go homeless is not going to change in the short term. Modern structures are not to be visible from the georgian vistas, as that would 'spoil the view' for people who can afford to live in those areas. We cannot exceed 8 storeys, even in the Docklands SDZ because of vistas or because of the shadows that may be cast on terraced houses built in the 1990's in Dublin 1 of all places.

When we mature as a nation we may sling these people out of government and local government, but not before then.

The problem is also that you have people objecting to buildings because they'll "destroy the character" of their 1950s semi-derelict neighbourhood in D1.

D1 is such a prime area IMHO, it should be redeveloped and/or restored to its former glory with modern offices and homes.

Idbatterim · 21-08-2015 2:44pm

in some rare good news, dublin city council have requested that the 19 storey "tower" on the U2 site, be increased to 23 floors...

cgcsb · 21-08-2015 3:23pm

with water on it's north, east and south side it's a wonder why only 23 floors, it's literally not casting a shadow on anything.

Idbatterim · 21-08-2015 3:27pm

with water on it's north, east and south side it's a wonder why only 23 floors, it's literally not casting a shadow on anything.

I agree, but 23 floors for Dublin is a start! I thought the 19 was a joke, with 23 its scraping the limits of acceptable IMO. The funny thing is, the height increase seems to have come about, due to complaints to DCC from some of the public about the "tower" being too low...

with water on it's north, east and south side it's a wonder why only 23 floors, it's literally not casting a shadow on anything.

yes, but the 6/7 storey stuff right beside it, is also a wonder! The whole thing is a bloody fiasco in my opinion, crap conservative architecture, OTT building regulations in terms of size of the apartments in sq meter and also the number of floors is far too low, we could have housed far more residents and employees there, without going anywhere near high rise! The knock on effects are colossal of the OTT building requirements, massive property price inflation, people looking for endless pay rises, like the boom, except that wont be happening this time around, You could actually argue that a large part of the crash was down to planning and them not allowing smaller cheaper units where people would CHOOSE to live and offering viable family apartments, the alternative being offering 700-800k for a bog standard semi D in south dublin or moving god knows how far out of dublin, being the alternative...

FreudianSlippers · 21-08-2015 3:44pm

Idbatterim wrote: »

in some rare good news, dublin city council have requested that the 19 storey "tower" on the U2 site, be increased to 23 floors...

I'm still not a huge fan of the design (why all buildings in Dublin have to have that, for lack of a better word, 'exoskeleton' design is beyond me) but the building is so much more elegant and proportioned with the added height.

From SSC:

Idbatterim · 21-08-2015 3:46pm

I'm still not a huge fan of the design (why all buildings in Dublin have to have that, for lack of a better word, 'exoskeleton' design is beyond me) but the building is so much more elegant and proportioned with the added height.

thats the disappointing thing, I bet so many could be won over on the high rise isnt evil here, with an attractive or stunning tower, this certainly wont be it! but it could have been worse, a whole lot worse!

Quadrature · 21-08-2015 3:49pm

To be perfectly honest, I think this stuff about the Dublin "skyline" is a bit ridiculous. It doesn't have a skyline other than the Dublin / Wicklow mountains. The city is basically flat.

My concern is that without building a totally different concept in apartment living - big apartments with decent facilities, we'll end up with shoeboxes in the sky instead of something nice.

Ireland has the lowest % of apartment dwelling in the EU and I would suspect that's largely because most apartments to date have been pokey and seen as a thing you might rent while you're in your single years. They're certainly not seen as anything that could possibly be a family home.

Change that attitude by changing the architecture and breaking the notion that a "flat" is something second rate and you might have some hope of going up with bigger buildings.

If they're going to be over priced pokey hovels for buy to let landlords to profiteer on, then just keep sprawling into Kildare as they'll be a complete disaster.

cgcsb · 21-08-2015 4:02pm

I don't think there's a need to relax size restrictions. Even if we build thousands of new big apartments over the next 10 years, the 90's shoe boxes will still be there for cheaper lets for single people.

Quadrature · 21-08-2015 4:03pm

cgcsb wrote: »

I don't think there's a need to relax size restrictions. Even if we build thousands of new big apartments over the next 10 years, the 90's shoe boxes will still be there for cheaper lets for single people.

You could always knock some of them together to create a shoebox !

FreudianSlippers · 21-08-2015 4:15pm

cgcsb wrote: »

with water on it's north, east and south side it's a wonder why only 23 floors, it's literally not casting a shadow on anything.

23 floors isn't to scoff at.

These are examples of 22 floor buildings from ground/near-ground in a low-to-mid rise city:

Idbatterim · 21-08-2015 4:38pm

I don't think there's a need to relax size restrictions. Even if we build thousands of new big apartments over the next 10 years, the 90's shoe boxes will still be there for cheaper lets for single people.

yeah but the shoe boxes are dated and crap, I dont think we should reduce the minimum size down to say 35-40sq m and only have developers build them, but I would allow them for a certain % of the 1 beds in a scheme... there needs to be far more choice, for smaller cheaper apartments and also for apartments that are viable for families...

FreudianSlippers · 21-08-2015 4:41pm

Idbatterim wrote: »

yeah but the shoe boxes are dated and crap, I dont think we should reduce the minimum size down to say 35-40sq m and only have developers build them, but I would allow them for a certain % of the 1 beds in a scheme... there needs to be far more choice, for smaller cheaper apartments and also for apartments that are viable for families...

Most buildings in the past 20 years I have seen in the US make the most use of the space by having a range of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments with the occasional studio thrown in to make up dead space on a floor, with the upper floors turned into penthouses.

Carawaystick · 21-08-2015 4:48pm

Idbatterim wrote: »

yeah but the shoe boxes are dated and crap, I dont think we should reduce the minimum size down to say 35-40sq m and only have developers build them, but I would allow them for a certain % of the 1 beds in a scheme... there needs to be far more choice, for smaller cheaper apartments and also for apartments that are viable for families...

Say what you like about Ballymun, but they did have 1200 '^2 3 bed flats.

Idbatterim · 21-08-2015 4:52pm

Say what you like about Ballymun, but they did have 1200 '^2 3 bed flats.

a lot of people think of ballymum when highrise is mentioned here, but I certainly wouldnt advocate it for anything other than people or families on decent enough incomes, where it isnt going to be another ballymun, in fact it would be quite the opposite, nice big glass towers, they would be buildings of prestige not hovels...

FreudianSlippers · 21-08-2015 4:56pm

Idbatterim wrote: »

a lot of people think of ballymum when highrise is mentioned here, but I certainly wouldnt advocate it for anything other than people or families on decent enough incomes, where it isnt going to be another ballymun, in fact it would be quite the opposite, nice big glass towers, they would be buildings of prestige not hovels...

+1

I don't think anyone would argue against high-rise as social housing. However, conversely I don't think anyone could seriously disagree with a percentage being allocated for background-checked and interviewed families in need of social housing.

As an aside, anti-social behaviour is generally not dealt with well by the councils with regard to estates.

Schadenfreudia · 21-08-2015 5:39pm

Looking at those photos the site could easily have taken another 10 floors (33 stories)

That would be Dublin's first real tall building.

qweerty · 21-08-2015 7:10pm

It seems to me that much more attention should be paid to how a building will age - materials, design, etc. (Despite the fact that it is older by almost two decades, Berkeley Library in Trinity College has aged far better than the Arts Building.) I don't think that the Sir Rogerson's Quay tower will age well!

miscn · 29-08-2015 3:17pm

Schadenfreudia wrote: »

Looking at those photos the site could easily have taken another 10 floors (33 stories)

That would be Dublin's first real tall building.

Yeah, I don't understand why the city council is so opposed to high rise. This could be the perfect place e for a nice tall tower.

Idbatterim · 30-08-2015 11:16am

Three articles that I have read today on the effects that virtually no availability for commercial space is having on Dublin! Yet the rubbish architecture and 5/6 storey waste of space continue! As soon as all the cheap / easy land has been developed in that area, I can see change coming, either companies will stop locating here or they will have to allow realistic densities. The heights of the usual rubbish, could be increased by one third easily and would still be low. In fact I think the 5/6 sotrey stuff on the quays looks rubbish, because it is so insignificant at the point of the liffey...

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/commercial-property/dublin-city-faces-shortage-of-grade-a-office-space-1.2328326

http://www.independent.ie/business/small-business/latest-news/plans-for-dublins-new-startup-hub-fall-apart-31487219.html

http://www.independent.ie/business/technology/news/how-dublin-is-becoming-a-nogo-zone-for-new-tech-firms-31487239.html

Reuben1210 · 30-08-2015 4:53pm

The hoardings are up for capital dock....just waiting on the final permission...

newacc2015 · 30-08-2015 5:00pm

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

+1

I don't think anyone would argue against high-rise as social housing. However, conversely I don't think anyone could seriously disagree with a percentage being allocated for background-checked and interviewed families in need of social housing.

As an aside, anti-social behaviour is generally not dealt with well by the councils with regard to estates.

In NYC, if you are building a high rise. There is height limits in some parts. They will allow you to build above the height limit in return for having some low income housing in the development. If a 1 bed is going for 2500 dollars a month. The low income person gets it for 450 dollars month. They all must have a secure job. All the people are credit checked and have to be interviewed and selected by the management board of the development. There is no real issues.

I cant imagine the same thing happening here. It might be suggested. But I can imagine a sob story from the Joe Duffy show getting a place immediately in a development without a reference check and destroying the tone of the building.

FreudianSlippers · 31-08-2015 9:24am

newacc2015 wrote: »

In NYC, if you are building a high rise. There is height limits in some parts. They will allow you to build above the height limit in return for having some low income housing in the development. If a 1 bed is going for 2500 dollars a month. The low income person gets it for 450 dollars month. They all must have a secure job. All the people are credit checked and have to be interviewed and selected by the management board of the development. There is no real issues.

I cant imagine the same thing happening here. It might be suggested. But I can imagine a sob story from the Joe Duffy show getting a place immediately in a development without a reference check and destroying the tone of the building.

I was discussing that earlier in the thread as I believe from some places that a percentage of apartment for low-income, but background checked, individuals has been successful elsewhere. I think it's something like 10% of apartments must be designated for these people per development.

Carawaystick · 31-08-2015 12:27pm

newacc2015 wrote: »

They all must have a secure job.

What if the persons secure job is gone?

Ren2k7 · 31-08-2015 4:20pm

miscn wrote: »

Yeah, I don't understand why the city council is so opposed to high rise. This could be the perfect place e for a nice tall tower.

DCC is controlled by an anti-progress cabal consisting of An Taisce, the Georgian Society, Joycean fanboys and nutter far lefties who regard commercial high rise as a Goldman Sachs led conspiracy.

Dubliners are doomed to spend their lives in a giant Bloomsday museum.

Idbatterim · 31-08-2015 5:00pm

DCC is controlled by an anti-progress cabal consisting of An Taisce, the Georgian Society, Joycean fanboys and nutter far lefties who regard commercial high rise as a Goldman Sachs led conspiracy.

Dubliners are doomed to spend their lives in a giant Bloomsday museum.

you know what, the more time goes on and I think about it, the more insane the situation is. A large cause of the crash was off the wall property prices, massive debt and making ourselves totally uncompetitive. This is starting again with the commercial rents and also residential prices. The moronic 55 square meter minimum apartment size etc. We have condemned an entire new area of the city to mediocrity at best (its total crap IMO), along with all the associated draw backs of this and for what? to not insult the georgian buildings feelings? because you might see some modern building in a city AND a georgian building at the same time, gasp, horrorb:eek::rolleyes:

Where do you start and end with this? all the locals who might object to the new developments, do we start CPO'ing that total low density / architecturally appalling crap they are in? to bring up the standard of development in the city, so the georgian buildings will be happier?

The economic and human cost of this total BS from DCC, Bord Pleanala etc is far too high, given we get nothing in return from it? What have we got crap / low rise architecture?

cgcsb · 31-08-2015 5:14pm

That's exactly it, we must commute from Kildare because of georgian vistas and terraced social housing built in the 1990s in prime locations.

qweerty · 31-08-2015 10:52pm

Just to be the contrarian... It's hard to predict what impact the tech revolution will have on work patterns of the future. The trend of working from home must surely increase exponentially once it reaches critical mass. And that will lead to less office space being required as people rotate desks. Driverless cars will mean people can work on the way to work and get there faster. But the big unknowable is the employment trend. Super-fast connectivity, artificial intelligence and other advances will result in many jobs becoming redundant. Ireland's tech quarter, which does very little development, will be near the top of the list for downsizing. What if tech companies left or downsized their offices? GC would be stuck with large towers in a country that doesn't really do apartment living, with the possibility that the surrounding working class areas would subsume it, as the young workers moved to urban areas. Now, obviously, we shouldn't be shackled in the present by looking to the unknowable long-term future. And I'm not suggesting that the planners are necessarily taking what I've said into account. But "build it, and build it high" might just be the attitude that we bemoan in decades to come.

cgcsb · 01-09-2015 9:43am

The work from home thing has been plugged since the 1970's. The technology to do it well has existed for over a decade. The reality is, there is no substitute for having workers in a centralised location.

qweerty · 01-09-2015 12:01pm

cgcsb wrote: »

The work from home thing has been plugged since the 1970's. The technology to do it well has existed for over a decade. The reality is, there is no substitute for having workers in a centralised location.

I know it has. But I think you're wrong.

Ben D Bus · 01-09-2015 12:26pm

qweerty wrote: »

I know it has. But I think you're wrong.

As someone who has the option to work from home, and does so from time to time, I can't see many people taking the option as their main choice. It's a very isolating experience even with all modern comms available.

I have a few colleagues who do so a couple of days per week. Not one would choose to work from home full time.

I suspect the requirement for office space will only reduce marginally as a result of home working.

MJohnston · 01-09-2015 12:28pm

I'm with Ben D Bus here too - I could work from home as much as I wanted, but it's not for me, and most people I work with are the same.

qweerty · 01-09-2015 12:44pm

Ben D Bus wrote: »

As someone who has the option to work from home, and does so from time to time, I can't see many people taking the option as their main choice. It's a very isolating experience even with all modern comms available.

I have a few colleagues who do so a couple of days per week. Not one would choose to work from home full time.

I suspect the requirement for office space will only reduce marginally as a result of home working.

I don't necessarily want to get into the specifics; I was just making a general point. But the internet is replete with articles documenting increased working-from-home. And a study by Standord academics found that employee productivity was higher (interestingly, because of working more productively but also because of working longer and missing fewer days). Employee satisfaction was higher too.

Isn't it possible that your perception of working-from-home is based on it not being the norm. If the majority of your friends worked from home, your partner, etc, and it meant getting up an hour later, being able to have a relaxed lunch with friends, fit your work around daily commitments, do you not think you'd be more amenable?

Mods probably won't be happy if this continues...

Ben D Bus · 01-09-2015 1:22pm

qweerty wrote: »

If the majority of your friends worked from home, your partner, etc, and it meant getting up an hour later, being able to have a relaxed lunch with friends, fit your work around daily commitments, do you not think you'd be more amenable?

That's the brochure version, not the reality.

Meanwhile, in what may become more prevalent in the future, the 4-storey Dublin Exchange Building on the corner of Commons St & Mayor St has recently been demolished to be replaced by a 6(!) storey building.

I remember this being built, so the longevity of much of the current IFSC stock may come into question as cheap land disappears. Who knows, in another 15 years the new 6-storey Dublin Exchange may itself go to make way for a 20-storey building

qweerty · 01-09-2015 1:38pm

Ben D Bus wrote: »

That's the brochure version, not the reality

I was giving it to show how your thinking is blinkered. The reality is not a world where people would rather spend the majority of daylight hours in a communal space with people they don't much like, either.

MJohnston · 01-09-2015 1:56pm

qweerty wrote: »

I was giving it to show how your thinking is blinkered. The reality is not a world where people would rather spend the majority of daylight hours in a communal space with people they don't much like, either.

I think you're being very harsh there, until you've experienced the reality of long periods of time working from home, you might not understand why it's quite an off-putting thought.

Now we could have a conversation about working remotely as a distinct concept from working from home - there's definitely scope for being able to cluster employees into shared working spaces closer to their home in the future.

FreudianSlippers · 01-09-2015 2:00pm

The concept also fails to consider a significant number of jobs in the city which are incapable of lengthy work-from-home periods. As a lawyer, I could do maybe a day or two maximum in the average week - otherwise I need to be in the city centre in a good office location.

qweerty · 01-09-2015 2:06pm

MJohnston wrote: »

I think you're being very harsh there, until you've experienced the reality of long periods of time working from home, you might not understand why it's quite an off-putting thought.

Now we could have a conversation about working remotely as a distinct concept from working from home - there's definitely scope for being able to cluster employees into shared working spaces closer to their home in the future.

I'm merely proposing that different patterns of work will exist; Bend D Bus is the one who is rejecting anything bu the status quo.

It's not a case of 100% of work-time being from home, either.

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

The concept also fails to consider a significant number of jobs in the city which are incapable of lengthy work-from-home periods. As a lawyer, I could do maybe a day or two maximum in the average week - otherwise I need to be in the city centre in a good office location.

No doubt: some work will be affected more than others. But, for instance, ultra-HD streaming would significantly reduce the need to be face-to-face.

Incidentally the legal profession is said to be one most susceptible to advances in technology. Although, ironically in this case, that which will soonest be automated (like research, etc) will be stuff one would be most likely to be able to do from home.

MJohnston · 01-09-2015 2:09pm

qweerty wrote: »

I'm merely proposing that different patterns of work will exist; Bend D Bus is the one who is rejecting anything bu the status quo.

It's not a case of 100% of work-time being from home, either.

I know you're not, but what I'm saying (and I believe what Ben D Bus is after as well) is that the numbers working from home aren't going to make a sufficient dent in the numbers that will remain working in the city centre, especially as that number will continue to expand.

qweerty · 01-09-2015 2:15pm

MJohnston wrote: »

I know you're not, but what I'm saying (and I believe what Ben D Bus is after as well) is that the numbers working from home aren't going to make a sufficient dent in the numbers that will remain working in the city centre, especially as that number will continue to expand.

Yeah, I understand that too. But I think it's misguided to be so certain of that.

Ben D Bus · 01-09-2015 2:15pm

qweerty wrote: »

Bend D Bus is the one who is rejecting anything bu the status quo.

I don't recall doing that

MJohnston · 01-09-2015 2:53pm

qweerty wrote: »

Yeah, I understand that too. But I think it's misguided to be so certain of that.

Well, we'll have to agree to disagree on that, but it's worth noting that even within companies that embrace the Working From Home ideal (and I work for one of those), they still require desk space for those employees, and most of the employees who do it regularly still come into the office at least 1-2 days a week.

Carawaystick · 01-09-2015 3:04pm

cgcsb wrote: »

That's exactly it, we must commute from Kildare because of georgian vistas and terraced social housing built in the 1990s in prime locations.

And yet in Kildare, you can't build in certain spots because of georgian vistas http://dt106ers.com/2010/07/board-rejects-housing-plan-at-protected-demesne-castletown-house/

Planning & Tall Buildings in Dublin

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