new Greystones/Surrounds Draft Development Plan

recedite

Its available for viewing in the library and submissions can be made up until Feb 8th.

View online here.

recedite

I see on the "Map A -Zoning" there is quite a bit of land (sheep fields) to be rezoned for housing.
Across the road from Lidl and Redford estate.
Also both sides of the new Farrankelly Road at the roundabout nearest the N11.
Can't imagine there are many developers lining up at the moment, but these plans last for 5 years.

Annasopra

They also want to remove the protected structure from the La Touche hotel

karma_coma

mango salsa wrote: »

They also want to remove the protected structure from the La Touche hotel

Well if anywhere is to be redeveloped/constructed in this town it should be on plots near/inside the centre of town. Density (persons per km/sq.) must be raised in this area to avoid the mistakes learnt from places like Bray (and Dublin on a bigger scale) as the negative knock on effects are vast..

Building out in to the green belt (eg up at the Farrenkelly Road) is highly destructive and also poor urban planning practice. Also leaves residents who'd buy there isolated from services and public transport links.

The listing of the La Touche Hotel greatly impeded any potential effort to devise a plan to redevelop the site due to the outlandish condition that at the least the facade must be preserved. If better forward thinking in the past had been employed this large, centrally located plot could have been developed for a wide range of uses: new hotel/housing/apartments/retail/park/new Garda station etc..

The building is outdated and unsuitable for reuse let alone not being in any way noteworthy architecturally.

recedite

^^ I'd agree with all that.
Anyone buying a new house at the Redford/Blacklion site will find new schools and shops already built, and right on their doorstep. And the density of the housing decreases as it goes up the hill towards Kindlestown, which will make it look better.

The Farrankelly roundabout rezoning is a strange one. On the south side of the road, the two industrial units provided employment, one of them is still in business AFAIK. It seems like an ideal spot for any industry involving lorries. Why change to residential?

The north side of the road was one of several illegal dumps discovered in Wicklow in the late 1990's, and the legal shenanigans there held up the NRA for well over a year when they were trying to connect Farrankelly Road to the N11. It must be the only land in the country that has gone from a liability to an asset in the last10 years. Not sure I'd buy a house built on a dump though. I'm guessing the most unstable parts are what they are now calling "active open space"and the rest will be residential.
But sure if they throw plenty of pyrites into the foundations, the expansion of that should counteract the subsidence of the dump, and everything will be grand :pac:

LifeBeginsAt40

With all the ghost estates in Ireland why on earth are we planning on destroying yet more green land for housing and more concrete fields? Do we never learn, obviously not.

Not to mention the extra traffic towards Bray in the morning - no point in developing the town without the transport infrastructure to support the growth.

You cant even arrive in Greystones by boat

karma_coma

recedite wrote: »

Anyone buying a new house at the Redford/Blacklion site will find new schools and shops already built, and right on their doorstep. And the density of the housing decreases as it goes up the hill towards Kindlestown, which will make it look better.

Agree with that, the site near Lidl would be suited for housing given that there are services in situ already. Plus maybe it will allow for the completion of the road that stops past the entrance for the estate after Lidl car park.

There are plenty of other sites (than the La Touche Hotel) near the main street which should be developed before anything though in my opinion. As well as a number of unfinished apartment developments ('Portella Development' sites on La Touche Place & Kimberly Road to name two).
Perhaps the old convent site too behind St. Brigid's. Another site (albeit small) at the end of Bowe Lane on the right heading towards the footbridge.

recedite

LifeBeginsAt40 wrote: »

With all the ghost states in Ireland why on earth are we planning on destroying yet more green land for housing and more concrete fields?

They have worked out in the plan "target figures" for population growth.
Greystones; up from 17,000 people now, to 21,000 in year 2016 and 24,000 in 2022.
Kilcoole; up from 4000 people now, to 4500 in year 2016 and 5000 in 2022

In getting these figures, they appear to have taken the census figures from 2002, 2006 and 2011 and projected the population growth forward.

I'm inclined to think that in those years we were in a period of economic growth, with net immigration, plus the whole Charleland area was built and attracted people in. Whereas now, we are in a different times. It reminds me of the optimistic growth forecasts the government keep coming up with, and then at the end of the year they announce an unforeseen budgetary problem because the growth targets weren't achieved.

Fiachra2

On Monday, TV3's morning show are showing a piece about Wicklow County Council's plans to remove protection from the LaTouche hotel (paving the way for its demolition). The piece also covers the efforts of the community to rectify the dereliction of the harbour and other related topics. Show goes out at 11am

loyatemu

isn't there loads of land around Charlesland already zoned for housing (ie the areas on either side of the southern access road to the south of the Charlesland estates)?

wicklowdub

I dont think that is zoned residential (not in any great density I think circa 300 but these were to be 4-5 bedrooms houses). The original plans were for a petrol station, garda station and national school plus a retail area as well.

Fiachra2

One would have thought that 300 would be plenty for the forseeable future. Evedently not if you are a "Planner"

loyatemu

Fiachra2 wrote: »

One would have thought that 300 would be plenty for the forseeable future. Evedently not if you are a "Planner"

yeah, and larger family houses are exactly what is needed (given that Charlesland consists entirely of 2 and 3 beds) - there's 31 2-beds for sale on MyHome at the moment in Charlesland alone, whereas there's only 14 4-beds in the whole of Greystones (most of them at crazy prices). Plenty of land zoned residential at the harbour too (I know that's a different can of worms...)

I always assumed that the southern access road was built primarily to open up more land for development. Wicklow Co Co aren't the worst, but councillors just can't resist making their mark.

Fiachra2

The whole notion that there would be additional zoning in any town when there are tracts of zoned undeveloped land around the place not to mention the 100's of thousands of surplus houses in the country as a whole is interesting. After the collapse of the property bubble and the misery it inflicted on so much of the population you might expect:
a) the council planners might act more responsibly
b)that central govenment would have put serious restrictions on random rezoning just in case councils did not act responsibly.

However neither has happened so I guess here we go again!

recedite

loyatemu wrote: »

I always assumed that the southern access road was built primarily to open up more land for development.

There were two major bottlenecks into Greystones before Charlesland was developed; Delgany village for the N11, and Windgates hill for Bray.
It was deemed necessary to have a wide new access road before any new houses came on stream.

Anyway, there is more to "development" than just rezoning land for more housing.

Fiachra2

recedite wrote: »

Anyway, there is more to "development" than just rezoning land for more housing.

Are you sure?

Mahogany

So are the population projections in this report actually realistic?