Minister Noonan talks about building heights in Dublin

L1011

Victor wrote: »

These things are decided on merit, not popularity or who shouts the loudest.

In Apple's case, it was decided on merit. Someone with cash can shout a lot.

yoke

cgcsb wrote: »

What are you blithering on about?

What part don't you understand?

If you aren't able to understand any of it, maybe you should keep out of the discussion when grown-ups are talking

patrickbrophy18

MJohnston wrote: »

I've never been more glad of Irish infrastructure planning failures than with the loss of the Eastern bypass, personally.

Ah yes. However, in my second post immediately after my first post, I mentioned that heavy rail and cycle infrastructure should be part of the Eastern Bypass should it ever be built. I say this for the following 2 reasons:

1. There is a considerable micro-network of rail lines around the Dublin Port area which feeds directly into the rest of the national rail network. Currently, the use of it is limited only to freight delivery from the port. Yet, with a comparatively small amount of investment, it could easily be re-purposed for passenger services if a Manhattan Style Metropolis ever materialized in the port vicinity.
   
   That way, if a twin-track was to be incorporated into the Eastern Bypass as a spur off the DART line just north of Booterstown, it would essentially allow a lot of services to bypass the bottleneck between Grand Canal Dock and Connolly Stations. The Manhattan Bridge demonstrates this by having a twin track module below road level. It also carries pedestrians and cyclists which brings me to point 2.
   
   
2. Given that there is already a plan for a Sandycove to Sutton Cycle Route (S2S), including cycle lanes and pedestrian paths as part of the Eastern Bypass would make it a supplement to the S2S. The addition of a lower deck to the Eastern Bypass would open up the possibility for shops, cafes and kiosks which would serve many purposes. The most obvious of these would be to help pay back the cost of the bridges construction and also as stopping points for pedestrians and cyclists to buy refreshments and relax. It would also offer them breathtaking views of the bay.
   

Anyway, back to the main topic. This legacy of restricting building heights is all very well when trying to preserve the historic built form within designated heritage districts. However, when it is practiced as a force of habit from NIMBYs and disgruntled or begrudging locals in average looking areas, it just becomes cringe-worthy. Most of the iconic cities of The World gained their status by reaching for the skies. Moreover, cities like Paris, New York, Dubai (more recently) and London are examples of how Dublin could look if it applied itself (or more to the point, if it was allowed to). In my opinion, the Spire on O'Connell Street doesn't count as it is just lying there.

bear1

If the city or indeed country wants to attract business post brexit then the government should be allowing higher buildings to be erected.
Done properly and they can look very nice indeed.
Amazing to think we could have had liberty hall torn down and replaced with a modern tower and it was rejected on what? Historic grounds?
Anyone know when the exo building will be finished? Can't find anything online about its progress.

patrickbrophy18

cgcsb wrote: »

Proposals for 4 storeys at the proposed glass bottle site should result in firings. We can't waste anymore central land. Also more SDZs, the abandoned industrial area north of broom bride station is screaming for an sdz

Ah yes. I had the pleasure (or rather lack there of) of going to a job interview in the area several years back. This required me to walk through the entire industrial estate and all I can say is it was depressing as f*ck!!!

It's such a pity given that most of the surrounding areas are lovely. An SDZ for high-rise development would be very good for this site and a golden opportunity to create a proper benchmark for an impressive high-rise district.

Idbatterim

The companies making the decisions on where to relocate to have done it or are doing it now. Dublin won't be getting much out of it. Spineless and poor government have ensured that! A city with third world transport. Outrageous marginal tax rate, housing crisis that makes Londons market look normal, outrageous child care cost if you have kids...

The Brexit opportunity has been blown

murphaph

Idbatterim wrote: »

The Brexit opportunity has been blown

And it was a very real opportunity.

Idbatterim

I have just come across this article. Made the decision to move to London earlier today, Along with one of my mates. Stuck out the recession here and I was employed throughout it and it's now that we are leaving! I fancy a change of scenery. But the pathetic governance at all levels and living in a city that that many try to keep as a little village in development terms, it's a disgusting disgrace. It's one of the big reasons I am getting out. the fact that fg are the best of an appalling lot leaves no hope either. Others are delusional, saying they'll be out come election time. First they won't. Secondly in my opinion like I mentioned the other options are comedy level! The below just echoes our sentiments...

there is a second independent link saying a mass uprising against the government would be supported by 55% of 18-34 year olds. I just fall inside that bracket...

http://m.independent.ie/business/commercial-property/70-cranes-over-dublin-skyline-should-alarm-the-government-35643455.html

http://m.independent.ie/irish-news/more-than-half-of-young-people-in-ireland-would-join-a-mass-uprising-against-the-government-35658179.html

TallGlass

I mentioned this before. Even if a building is given permission for 4/5 story's it should be made to be expandable to 25/30 if needed by design and it should be a requirement of the planning permission.

These councillors have there heads up there arses on this one.

Dublin needs high rise and it will need to eventually happen. What these clowns are essentially doing is building 4/5 story blocks that will need to be knocked down in a few years, due to there been nothing else to knock down and no more land to build on. The mess that goes with knocking down an apartment, the environmental impact of traffic, let alone the sheer waste of building materials.

Dublin also to me has far to many parks. Go on Google Maps on Sat view, no need for about 3/4 of them.

Government need to step in on this one IMO and set the record straight. Multinationals coming here from the likes of the US, London, Japan and China etc.. Must be wondering what the hell is going on with the small buildings and where must the people live. Along with if our infrastructure building wise is that small, they must be then questioning what type of set up have we for other types of infrastructure like transport, internet, electricity, waste etc.. Sure we only opened up our first waste incinerator this week, after it first discussed 20 years ago.

It's blood embarrassing at this stage, we need to wake up, we look like a joke to other cities.

Idbatterim

Forget the councils. Staffed by parish pump morons. Councillors voted in by morons. National government needs to sort this out! Maybe they will commission a report on it and then commission a report on that report ...

knipex

TallGlass wrote: »

I mentioned this before. Even if a building is given permission for 4/5 story's it should be made to be expandable to 25/30 if needed by design and it should be a requirement of the planning permission.

The cost impact of this would be horrendous. Would probably double or even treble construction costs and time which would be fine if you were spreading that cost across 25\30 floors.. Not across 4 or 5..

TallGlass wrote: »

Dublin also to me has far to many parks. Go on Google Maps on Sat view, no need for about 3/4 of them.

Say what ??? Are you mad ??

Look at Singapore, a city state, a population of nearly 6 million and a land area of 719.1 sq
km. A population density of 7,797/km2 but far far far more green areas. Actively encourages green spaces. It reclaimed land from the bloody sea to turn it into green space..

TallGlass wrote: »

Government need to step in on this one IMO and set the record straight. Multinationals coming here from the likes of the US, London, Japan and China etc.. Must be wondering what the hell is going on with the small buildings and where must the people live. Along with if our infrastructure building wise is that small, they must be then questioning what type of set up have we for other types of infrastructure like transport, internet, electricity, waste etc.. Sure we only opened up our first waste incinerator this week, after it first discussed 20 years ago.

It's blood embarrassing at this stage, we need to wake up, we look like a joke to other cities.

While I agree that height limitation in Dublin are a joke you seriously need to travel more..

Peregrine

TallGlass wrote: »

I mentioned this before. Even if a building is given permission for 4/5 story's it should be made to be expandable to 25/30 if needed by design and it should be a requirement of the planning permission.

That would be a great way of ensuring that nothing ever gets built in Dublin.

TallGlass wrote: »

Dublin also to me has far to many parks. Go on Google Maps on Sat view, no need for about 3/4 of them.

We need to make city living more attractive. Not less attractive.

MJohnston

While I would love Dublin to have some skyscraper-esque landmark towers aesthetically, I personally believe the clamour for tall buildings as a panacea for our housing crisis is sorely overstated.

The true problem imo is not that we've been lacking a Emerald State Building, it's that we're building 3-4 storey blocks of apartments in the city. What we really need is higher densities in all new residential developments within the urban area. Apartment developments out in the likes of Sandyford, Ashtown, Swords, or in some of the many greenfield sites that litter the inner-M50 area - these need to be built 2-3 floors higher in general, and they need to have minimum of 5-6 floors.

One good bit of progress is the revision of building regulations to allow for smaller studio and 1 bed apartments. This allows the density of any given development to increase without necessarily increasing the storeys.

Now also, I've come to be of the opinion that there's a pretty low appetite among developers to build taller buildings. I've come to this conclusion by following lots of the development applications that are sent to DCC, and noticing that in many cases, they're content to build below established height limits. This happened several times in the Docklands SDZ for instance, particularly the Capital Docks and Exo projects which could have gone much taller, but didn't. I believe the reasons behind this are that (a) developers are still cautious after the bubble burst and are erring on the side of building more pragmatically designed projects (b) the economics of tall buildings are really tough and once you go over a certain height, you need to start making the apartments higher cost and more prestigious - this is something that has a small audience in Dublin, and ultimately its possible that many developers have decided it isn't economically viable.

The flipside of (b) above is also this - taller buildings do not linearly increase housing capacity either, in fact there's a significant increase in floor spaces over a certain height - so an extra 5-6 storeys could end up only adding another 2 units per floor, compared to a lower height building with each floor adding 10+ units.

Anyway, I guess my point is this - I think we ought to care a huge amount more about DCC or ABP cutting off 1-2 floors from 5-6 storey apartment buildings, rather than complaining about the lack of Liberty Hall sized buildings, when ultimately we need the former more, and I believe that there's no developer appetite to building the latter for residential purposes.

TallGlass

knipex wrote: »

The cost impact of this would be horrendous. Would probably double or even treble construction costs and time which would be fine if you were spreading that cost across 25\30 floors.. Not across 4 or 5..

Say what ??? Are you mad ??

Look at Singapore, a city state, a population of nearly 6 million and a land area of 719.1 sq
km. A population density of 7,797/km2 but far far far more green areas. Actively encourages green spaces. It reclaimed land from the bloody sea to turn it into green space..

While I agree that height limitation in Dublin are a joke you seriously need to travel more..

Travel more, you sir need to take a walk around the Dublin IFSC and Grand Canal and take a look at what is been build. It's a cry shame what is been put up bar one or two buildings. As an example you've the recently finished Central Bank, which I counted as 6 floors, beside it you've yet another two buildings going up of similar height. Now if someone just had the cop on there to build one building of 24/30 floors, the other land could have been used for something else like housing which there's a shortage of at the moment.

So you think there isn't enough green space in Dublin and you want more, I think you are off your rocker. Where exactly do you think these houses are going to be built if you can't build up? Green space, so if you want to keep that then we need to build up. Simple as that, if not then use the green space, there's no option otherwise.

And yes it will cost more to future proof a building, IMO it's money well spent when you consider how much it will cost to build the thing from the ground up again. Why is it such a hard thing to concept, you build it as if it was a 20/30 floor building and stop building at 4/5/6 floors, until DCC or which ever council it is gets there heads out of the ars'es and allow big proper purpose buildings in Dublin.

Where exactly will I need to travel to?

TallGlass

Peregrine wrote: »

That would be a great way of ensuring that nothing ever gets built in Dublin.


We need to make city living more attractive. Not less attractive.

Well nothing is getting built is it, bar a few things going up here and there.

Less attractive? Why because there isn't more parks. How many parks do you need or waste land lying idle doing nothing. Don't get me wrong I like parks and there are plenty in Dublin, it would be idle to keep them all, but houses need to be built and spreading out will continue to happen until we use this space or build up higher than 6 floors. But I wouldn't worry about either of them things happening in the next 20/30 years as the councils keep away from doing anything like it.

Ben D Bus

TallGlass wrote: »

And yes it will cost more to future proof a building, IMO it's money well spent when you consider how much it will cost to build the thing from the ground up again. Why is it such a hard thing to concept, you build it as if it was a 20/30 floor building and stop building at 4/5/6 floors, until DCC or which ever council it is gets there heads out of the ars'es and allow big proper purpose buildings in Dublin.

Are you an engineer or a QS? Have you any figures on the additional cost of foundations for a 30 storey building? A rough % figure will do. Otherwise I'll have to assume you've no idea what you're on about.

Peregrine

TallGlass wrote: »

And yes it will cost more to future proof a building, IMO it's money well spent when you consider how much it will cost to build the thing from the ground up again. Why is it such a hard thing to concept, you build it as if it was a 20/30 floor building and stop building at 4/5/6 floors, until DCC or which ever council it is gets there heads out of the ars'es and allow big proper purpose buildings in Dublin.

Do you have any idea how much extra money that would cost to a developer? Nothing would get built.

TallGlass wrote: »

Well nothing is getting built is it, bar a few things going up here and there.

Less attractive? Why because there isn't more parks. How many parks do you need or waste land lying idle doing nothing. Don't get me wrong I like parks and there are plenty in Dublin, it would be idle to keep them all, but houses need to be built and spreading out will continue to happen until we use this space or build up higher than 6 floors. But I wouldn't worry about either of them things happening in the next 20/30 years as the councils keep away from doing anything like it.

Yes, build on the vacant sites in the city, remove the absurd height limits, redevelop under-utilised land such as Dublin Industrial Estate, build on the Glass Bottle site, redevelop the Connolly lands with higher residential density, buy up the farm in Glasnevin. Hell, level the houses on City Quay. Don't build on parks. Jesus.

I've been one of the vocal supporters of high-rise on this forum but you're just coming out with illogical rants.

knipex

TallGlass wrote: »

.

And yes it will cost more to future proof a building, IMO it's money well spent when you consider how much it will cost to build the thing from the ground up again. Why is it such a hard thing to concept, you build it as if it was a 20/30 floor building and stop building at 4/5/6 floors, until DCC or which ever council it is gets there heads out of the ars'es and allow big proper purpose buildings in Dublin.

?

If you knew anything about engineering or construction you would understand just how ridiculous the idea is.

The cost of building the first 4 or 5 floors of a 30 story building is probably 50% of the overall cost. Plus regulations change all the time..

If you want to build 25 or 30 stories then build 25 or 30 stories.
if you want to build 4 stories then build 4 stories..

It would probably work out cheaper to knock the existing 4 story building and start again than what you propose..

Idbatterim

Travel more, you sir need to take a walk around the Dublin IFSC and Grand Canal and take a look at what is been build. It's a cry shame what is been put up bar one or two buildings. As an example you've the recently finished Central Bank, which I counted as 6 floors, beside it you've yet another two buildings going up of similar height. Now if someone just had the cop on there to build one building of 24/30 floors, the other land could have been used for something else like housing which there's a shortage of at the moment.

The "Reflector" is going up in grand canal dock, facing the water, an entire 6 floors no less! :rolleyes:

TallGlass

knipex wrote: »

If you knew anything about engineering or construction you would understand just how ridiculous the idea is.

The cost of building the first 4 or 5 floors of a 30 story building is probably 50% of the overall cost. Plus regulations change all the time..

If you want to build 25 or 30 stories then build 25 or 30 stories.
if you want to build 4 stories then build 4 stories..

It would probably work out cheaper to knock the existing 4 story building and start again than what you propose..

Jesus lads you's seriously need to calm down a little. It's just a suggestion and no I have no background in this area, but to me it was just a bit of common sense and fore-planning, obviously its a terrible idea to future proof buildings from the posts here. So that suggestion is out the window.

Peregrine, apologies I read back over my stuff, that's the land I am referring to along with some 'parks' in housing estates that could easily have houses on them and at present serve nothing more than anti social behavior magnets anyway.

Idbatterim

Jesus lads you's seriously need to calm down a little. It's just a suggestion and no I have no background in this area, but to me it was just a bit of common sense and fore-planning, obviously its a terrible idea to future proof buildings from the posts here. So that suggestion is out the window.

the idea is sound, you just wouldnt be going from 4-30 floors. Some buildings are already receiving an extra floor or two...

Jayop

I'd go sky scraper but with strict regulations that they can't be boring boxes. Some of the new buildings in London are stunning and have become landmarks in their own right. Another few floors is just going to be more boring boxes with no innate attractiveness.

bear1

Doesn't the exo building finish this year?

New Goat

bear1 wrote: »

Doesn't the exo building finish this year?

It's hardly a skyscraper now is it.

bear1

New Goat wrote: »

It's hardly a skyscraper now is it.

Did I say it was? If you don't know you don't need to make a smart ass comment.

New Goat

bear1 wrote: »

Did I say it was? If you don't know you don't need to make a smart ass comment.

Think I was blinded by the post immediately preceding yours which referred to a skyscraper. My apologies.

MJohnston

bear1 wrote: »

Doesn't the exo building finish this year?

It hasn't even started yet, so, no, it won't be finished this year.

bear1

MJohnston wrote: »

It hasn't even started yet, so, no, it won't be finished this year.

Surprised considering it was green lit over a year ago.

Victor

TallGlass wrote: »

As an example you've the recently finished Central Bank, which I counted as 6 floors

I'm counting 8, not including the multi-level basement.

https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.3472333,-6.2349221,3a,75y,334.02h,110.6t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1s0drCxUuaS8_ucX8pFtxjQA!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3D0drCxUuaS8_ucX8pFtxjQA%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D319.96088%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

MJohnston

bear1 wrote: »

Surprised considering it was green lit over a year ago.

Planning permission was granted, but the planner still needs to shop the site around to interested parties before building.