High-rise versus Suburban Sprawl

Belfast

Should Irish cities allow high-rise building in city centres or should we continue as we are until towns like Tralee or Sligo become suburbs of Dublin

Rabies

high rise buildings should be allowed if they do not exceed a certain height. maybe 6/7 floors high would be enough. no need to ruin the skyline with large tower blocks.

Imposter

I think the question here is whether or not people (families as well) would live in apartments? At the moment I don't think they would. Irish people like having their house and this I think would be a major problem toward having high rise buildings commonplace in our towns and cities.

zeris

There is a two part problem in Ireland with high density housing (not trying to fudge the issue but the term high rise has many bad connotations) is that the land is so expensive the units are crammed in to maximise returns. This means that it is not practical for families to live there and instead we end with a flat land situation, where none of the owners of the property live there and the residents are transient. This then starts a trend of people associating high density with students etc and not a place to raise a family. So until we can break the meme, people will want their "castle".

Again, maybe we should take some cues and clues from Europe.

ur mentor

hi rise works in city centres all over the world why not here?
the desire is to live in a nice house with garden etc.
as familiy size continues to shrink (now about 2.9 people per residential unit on average compared t o4 about 40 yers ago) and occupancy in every unit gets lower
as people get older and do not want garden, car, security issues,
as marriages split up and recombine in different configurations
as work becomes more migratory
as transport becomes more time consuming
it appears there will be a need to ahve more people in the middle of hteaction
lets plan for this and give some good communal areas that are enjoyable.
when was there a really nice new square or new free park opened?

Victor

The game is about high density, not high rise. For many people having 100m2 of grass for a back garden is a nuisance because they still need to own and use a lawn mower. However if they could share a 5,000m2 park with 100 other residences, you can use 30% less land and not have to list to 100 different lawnmowers every Saturday.

monument

Originally posted by Victor
The game is about high density, not high rise. For many people having 100m2 of grass for a back garden is a nuisance because they still need to own and use a lawn mower. However if they could share a 5,000m2 park with 100 other residences, you can use 30% less land and not have to list to 100 different lawnmowers every Saturday.

The Victorian type attached town house should have been redeveloped a long time ago.

Apartment blocks or even high-rise apartment towers would be brilliant if they were done right. If such areas of residential developments were to include (or have close by) parks and recreation areas it would be fine, but we live in Ireland.

DMT

Originally posted by Rabies
no need to ruin the skyline with large tower blocks.

What skyline? New York has a skyline - Dublin has an endless ripple of crap rooftops.

Skyscrapers (and lots of them) are the way to go....

MadsL

lets plan for this and give some good communal areas that are enjoyable.

D1, D2, D3 etc build as high as you damn well please, as long as you follow the path of Chicago and RESPECT architectural excellence - have a 50,000 euro prize each year for the best building of the year. Forbid any more shabby thrown together apartment blocks and incorporate apartments in high-quality office buildings/residential space. How about I take an elevator 26 floors down to work each day, instead of living in Lucan and working in the city.

In the suburbs create new suburbs modeled on some of the higest housing density in Dublin - the likes of D8, D4, D6/6W etc where the Georgian buildings offer huge density but with communal open space. The trick is however to actually landscape the communal space - vandalised trees and acres of grass covered in dog**** are NOT landscaping.

cournioni

Well it doesn't really affect me, but I'd like to see some high rise area in Dublin because it gives a bit of life to the city. It'll give people something to look at because the skyscrapers will all be different. Any time I've been to New York, London etc. I've always looked out for the skyline. What do I have to look at in Dublin? The spike?! :rolleyes:

AngelofFire

In 40 years time i dont want dublin to look like manhattan however i also do not want to see cork city been known as dublin 66.

we should strife for a balance between the two. lets face it not every home buyer wants accomadation with 4 bedrooms and a front and back garden. for some a one bedroom apartment appartment will do nicely. the authorities should plan more carefully when it comes to building accomadation LA is the same size of dublin but has almost 8 times the number of people living there.

ozt9vdujny3srf

High rise buildings in dublin city centre? HAH! think of the traffic problems! You cant do stuff like that without proper infastructure.
Look at new-york, the roads are bloody wide, and it has a sub-way system that shouldnt be sneezed at to say the least, yet they STILL have huge traffic problems. I know New York is a much bigger city but the same apply's to dulin on a smaller scale. Bigger buildings means more people moving around a smaller area. Our roads are crap, we have no subway, the dart only serves certain parts of dublin and the luas is a joke that seems to be causing more harm then good.

What we need is different focal points throughout dublin, so that traffic is dispersed more evenly, and people have shorter distances to travel to get to work.

Aesthetically i dont really think there is an issue, if there is anything weimar germany thought us, its that large and fuctional can also be beautiful.

ToxicPaddy

I think high rise, with a height limit and decent sized apartments suitable for family living.

Unless youre willing to pay €500k+ for a 3 bed apartment and chances are its still not suitable for a family you're better off going to the burbs and start house hunting..

To be honest I dont think this type of thing will ever take off in Ireland. Like many here have said, land is too expensive, the standard of some developments that have gone up in recent years have been brutal and unless someone is allowed to come in and level all these old shabby georgian houses that are found in inner city, Ive no idea where they are going to find land to do all this..

Victor

Originally posted by AngelofFire
the authorities should plan more carefully when it comes to building accomadation LA is the same size of dublin

Eh, no it isn't. The urban area of LA is larger than all of county Dublin. http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap&&csz=Los+Angeles+CA+&Get%A0Map=Get+Map

Originally posted by ToxicPaddy
To be honest I dont think this type of thing will ever take off in Ireland. Like many here have said, land is too expensive, the standard of some developments that have gone up in recent years have been brutal and unless someone is allowed to come in and level all these old shabby georgian houses that are found in inner city, Ive no idea where they are going to find land to do all this..

http://www.ddda.ie

woosaysdan

Originally posted by Victor
Eh, no it isn't. The urban area of LA is larger than all of county Dublin. http://maps.yahoo.com/py/maps.py?Pyt=Tmap&&csz=Los+Angeles+CA+&Get%A0Map=Get+Map
http://www.ddda.ie

maybe he meant Co. Dublin

ToxicPaddy

Originally posted by Victor
http://www.ddda.ie

yeah there are doing it there alright, but something tells me that
everything built there will be well outta the price range of the
average joe soap with 2.4 kids....

I know there is going to be affordable housing, but isnt that just
a small percentage to keep the government happy and those
campaigning for that sort of thing?

How much is it anyway? 10% or 20%?

But say if you were not from that area but wanted to move into the city, would you honestly stand a chance of getting into this
scheme..

Tox

Don1

High rises. Risk affecting the skyline in a few areas for the sake of preserving the acres of countryside covered by suburban sprawl.

Belfast

Why Do apartment block in the city centre have car parking spaces ? The point of living in the cwentre of a city is you are so close tio things you can walk to them.

Tyrrial

setup and inquiry to run for 3-5 years and ignore the results

it's the way of the irish government... why mess with it?

Victor

Originally posted by Belfast
Why Do apartment block in the city centre have car parking spaces?

So they don't clog the streets with parking! The current standard is one space per 2 apartments.

Yes there are still people in Ireland who live 5 minutes from Grafton Street and insist on having a car.

Separately, can we ban cars for city residents? How would we decide it? (Rhetorical question - a yes answer would have people move out of town) A car parked in a basement space, used twice a week is better than one on the street used 10-20 times a week.

embraer170

Yes there are still people in Ireland who live 5 minutes from Grafton Street and insist on having a car.

But Victor, who can really blame them? Even in Hong Kong which has some of the best public transport in the world, few parking spaces, high vehicle import taxes, lots of toll roads/toll bridges and no where to really drive your car (cannot drive into China), yet car ownership is surprisingly high.

Even a family living in Dublin city centre needs a car, perhaps not for commuting to work but at least for shopping/going out during the weekend.

Victor

Originally posted by embraer170
Even a family living in Dublin city centre needs a car, perhaps not for commuting to work but at least for shopping/going out during the weekend.

Read my post again. I am not (yet! ) at the point of banning cars.

Lord Nikon

High-rise is going to becaome a part of city life, whether we like it or not. It happens in every city at some stage.

Belfast

Originally posted by embraer170
But Victor, who can really blame them? Even in Hong Kong which has some of the best public transport in the world, few parking spaces, high vehicle import taxes, lots of toll roads/toll bridges and no where to really drive your car (cannot drive into China), yet car ownership is surprisingly high.

Even a family living in Dublin city centre needs a car, perhaps not for commuting to work but at least for shopping/going out during the weekend.

I suspect that ownership of cars is about more that transport. I suspect if Dublin had a prefect public transport system most people would sill watt to have for social reasons. (Dating) When it comes to cars emotion seem to rule of logic. Many parents are now scared witless by the idea that a stranger will kidnap their children on their way to school unless they drive them to school them selves. It is possible to buy 2-3 year old cars for half the price of new one but people still pay for new cars. Any person who I have asked why they bought a new car instead of a second hand car could not give me a logic reason for buying one.
In many areas of the city if a car is not moved every 2-3 day it is assumed to me stolen and is vandalised. I do not think in is realistic for people to own a car and not use in for commuting. Insurance and road tax are paid if the car is used for commuting or not. The car also depreciates also at the same rate whether you commute or not. With fixed cost being so high why would some one who owns a car pay for a bus ticket on top of those costs?
The question would Dublin be a better city of private cars ware banned in Dublin city?
What would joy riders do for fun?
What about the lost of business for pharmacies when people do not need as many inhalers with less traffic fumes in the city?
What would be do with all that spare money that they are now longer able to spend on private cars?
How would the Gardaí deal with the high-speed bycycle chases?
How would we find people to fill the new buildings built over the old car parks?

quank

Be better if the government put in more money for transport and bought ALOT more buses for alot more destinations aswell. And fix the problem with buses; at bus stops, it says an average of 10 minutes you should wait for the next bus, but many atime people have to wait up to 30 minutes or even longer.
Raise road/car tax so some people might be forced to sell their car, which they wouldn't need anymore and then they could fall back on the super-new-buses that go anywhere you want.

monument

Originally posted by neuromancer
High-rise is going to becaome a part of city life, whether we like it or not. It happens in every city at some stage.

LA - (inc. all of it's cities) in proportion to it’s size has very few high-rise buildings.

Lord Nikon

Originally posted by monument
LA - (inc. all of it's cities) in proportion to it’s size has very few high-rise buildings.

I'd admit you have me their, and I'm sure there are more cities.

Victor

Originally posted by monument
LA - (inc. all of it's cities) in proportion to it’s size has very few high-rise buildings.

This was due to an earthquake safety old law that banned building over 10(?) stories. I think high rise building are now built on a quota/year basis.

Lord Nikon

I'll have to remember that for a tablequiz sometime.