Clontarf Flood Defense Wall to Come Down (slightly)

TallGlass

So.. After all the building of the flood defense wall for Clontarf, some bright spark in DCC and some bright spark local councilors have agree to lower the newly created wall at a cost of 230,000€. But the madness doesn't stop there. The newly lowered wall will make it 'below national flood protection standards', the entire point of the project was to build it so it protected against floods.

http://www.thejournal.ie/clontarf-sea-wall-being-lowered-3787946-Jan2018/

Gotta keep them house prices up motorists happy with the views..

odyssey06

The area in question hasn't flooded in living memory.
The reduced height will still provide protection against 1 in 100 year flood events for the next 50 years.

The local residents took DCC at their word when they promised that no sightlines would be affected by the new wall.

And that DCC would apply the cladding they promised in their application.

But I suppose we shouldn't expect an organisation such as DCC to stick to its promises, or to care about little things like planning permission.

humberklog

Well worth listening back to Pat Kenny this morning. He had a councilor on that voted for the reduction in size, this guy was as thick as 2 short planks.

There's also a large section of wall that has to be raised as it's a trip hazard. So one section is too high and another too low?!

Who signed off on this total balls up?

TallGlass

odyssey06 wrote: »

The area in question hasn't flooded in living memory.
The reduced height will still provide protection against 1 in 100 year flood events for the next 50 years.

The local residents took DCC at their word when they promised that no sightlines would be affected by the new wall.

And that DCC would apply the cladding they promised in their application.

But I suppose we shouldn't expect an organisation such as DCC to stick to its promises, or to care about little things like planning permission.

Is this not it flooded, and I have seen it much much worse than the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRidO-cUCS0

odyssey06

Apologies, I should have been more specific - it's never flooded from the sea, as it is currently protected to some extent by the lagoon \ bull island \ bull wall.
The flood in the video is the result of rainfall \ overflow of rivers running out to the sea which the wall actually makes more likely to happen - catch 22

The stretch between Alfie Byrne Road and the Wooden Bridge often overflows onto the promenade during spring tides and stormy weather. A different plan will be needed there.

I'm not saying it would have been unreasonable to put the value of the extra protection (1 in 200 v 1 in 100) above that of the visual amenity. What I do take issue with is placing no value on the visual amenity or promising one thing and delivering another.

Effects

TallGlass wrote: »

Is this not it flooded, and I have seen it much much worse than the video.

That flooding doesn't come from the sea, it's flows from inland, down to the coast. The wall doesn't do anything to stop this.

andekwarhola

At the very least, it's a pretty crass thing to read about local authority money with the many issues in the city at the moment.

Rigor Mortis

One can only hope that in the event of serious flooding, that any local residents associations who campaigned for this will be held to account. This is Darwin Award stuff.

odyssey06

andekwarhola wrote: »

At the very least, it's a pretty crass thing to read about local authority money with the many issues in the city at the moment.

And could have all been avoided if DCC had been clear about the impact of the wall height and had the debate about which height, balancing visual amenity versus flood protection before a brick had been lain

Effects

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

One can only hope that in the event of serious flooding, that any local residents associations who campaigned for this will be held to account. This is Darwin Award stuff.

There's never been any serious flooding that the wall would have prevented.

andekwarhola

odyssey06 wrote: »

And could have all been avoided if DCC had been clear about the impact of the wall height and had the debate about which height, balancing visual amenity versus flood protection before a brick had been lain

Sure what chance does flood protection and sensible use of taxpayers money have against the pressing issue of visual amenity and house prices.

odyssey06

andekwarhola wrote: »

Sure what chance does flood protection and sensible use of taxpayers money have against the pressing issue of visual amenity and house prices.

Higher house prices = higher LPT for DCC, so it is a virtuous circle

blue_blue

Couldn't they just paint a seascape at the top half of the wall? #wallHack

Rigor Mortis

odyssey06 wrote: »

Higher house prices = higher LPT for DCC, so it is a virtuous circle

Unlikely given the changes to LPT that are supposed to be on the cards. If this leads to flooding

taxpayers pay effective subsidy to residents to build wall
taxpayers pay effective subsidy to residents to reduce wall height
taxpayers pay effective subsidy to residents to clean up flood

Golden circle.

Its Nuts. But that is planning in Ireland my friends.

odyssey06

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

Unlikely given the changes to LPT that are supposed to be on the cards. If this leads to flooding

taxpayers pay effective subsidy to residents to build wall
taxpayers pay effective subsidy to residents to reduce wall height
taxpayers pay effective subsidy to residents to clean up flood

The good news is that approx half of that stretch doesn't have any residents, apart from ducks & herons in St Annes Park.

The effect on the other half is that the flood risk changes from 1 in 200 years to 1 in 100 years.

Rigor Mortis

odyssey06 wrote: »

The good news is that approx half of that stretch doesn't have any residents, apart from ducks & herons in St Annes Park.

The effect on the other half is that the flood risk changes from 1 in 200 years to 1 in 100 years.

I take your point, but those 1 in 200 years estimates are increasingly nonsensical. The problem about this is, we will be changing our requirements for what is needed upward in the coming years.

odyssey06

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

I take your point, but those 1 in 200 years estimates are increasingly nonsensical. The problem about this is, we will be changing our requirements for what is needed upward in the coming years.

Maybe we will, but if that is the case, they likely the non-reduced wall would be inadequate regardless, so let's enjoy the view while we can... in 20 years, we may have changed requirements to deal with, but so will the whole world and flood defence tech may have improved and things like clear glass defences may came down in price.

ct5amr2ig1nfhp

I was fuming on hearing this news today. Not a single gobsh1te in the council will be held accountable for this saga. It is pathetic that so much of our money is being wasted y councillors.
Deduct the cost from the wages of the councillors who voted for the wall and then subsequently voted to have it reduced.

Fupping ridiculous stuff going on.

malcom_x

I caught the same guy on Newstalk and I couldn't believe what I was hearing, some pseudo-science about the pipes underneath the road that will prevent flooding of the Clontarf Road and that the park is designed to flood. Crazy stuff. How an elected councillor can spew this stuff without being held accountable is shocking. This isn't 40's were things like this could pass, in todays Ireland and we have the science to justify the height of the wall. It will be insane if this goes ahead to provide a slightly nicer view from an elevated park, with the view blocked by the treeline in most places anyway.

fly_agaric

Rigor Mortis wrote:

I take your point, but those 1 in 200 years estimates are increasingly nonsensical.

Didn't Donald Trump say global warming/climate change is a Chinese Hoax? He's a very stable genius so the councillors should take their lead from him! No need for caution when it comes to flood defences.

Fann Linn

Be interesting to hear the views from the Insurance Industry.

TallGlass

odyssey06 wrote: »

Apologies, I should have been more specific - it's never flooded from the sea, as it is currently protected to some extent by the lagoon \ bull island \ bull wall.
The flood in the video is the result of rainfall \ overflow of rivers running out to the sea which the wall actually makes more likely to happen - catch 22

The stretch between Alfie Byrne Road and the Wooden Bridge often overflows onto the promenade during spring tides and stormy weather. A different plan will be needed there.

I'm not saying it would have been unreasonable to put the value of the extra protection (1 in 200 v 1 in 100) above that of the visual amenity. What I do take issue with is placing no value on the visual amenity or promising one thing and delivering another.

I agree with what you are saying, but I have seen it flooded from the sea where the tide was washing over the wall.

Plus it seems that they have built a wall on the park side also and the road is now higher and more level, which should prevent flooding along there.

Personally I don't think the view is any different as the road seems to be higher to me. I will have to trek down and check it out again.

Effects

TallGlass wrote: »

I agree with what you are saying, but I have seen it flooded from the sea where the tide was washing over the wall.

Pictures or it didn't happen.

Atlantic Dawn

Glad it's coming down, couldn't care how much it will cost to put right, the idiot engineers who decided it would prevent sea flooding in that area when there has never been ever that I can trace should be locked up.

Sleeper12

humberklog wrote:

Who signed off on this total balls up?

Totally agree.

Personally I don't believe DCC should have been swayed by a tiny minority in the first place. Unfortunately they were.

I do think that the media are making it out to be worse than it is, money wise. Whatever side of the debate you are on the fact is that the wall needs to be finished. Lowering it for 500 metres isn't going to cost that much & as I say it has to be finished one way or the other.

I think they were nuts to agree to lower it originally. It was supposed to be a sea defence wall first and foermost. I had a jeep when the wall was at its highest and I had no problem taking in the view. It really wasn't that high. Not that I should be taking in the view while driving

humberklog

^^^ I've a jeep too and can see over no prob.


As for the cost, the clown on Kenny this morning (Clr. Farrell?) said the cost of the cutting of the wall is just over 60k and the 500k that's being bandied about is including the cladding.

But hang on, whatever about building the wall too high it's a much bigger cock up building it too low. It's easy enough to rectify however any site engineer/project manager/designer/consultant should be aware of what constitutes a trip hazard into the sea.

Who designed the wall? Who agreed the heights? Who signed off on completion?
This work was carried out over a long period of time to a lot of discomfort to the public and at considerable expense in a time of economic woes.
What on earth was going on?


*I was a site engineer/project manager.

expectationlost

there another thread on this here https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=105789768 thre too im seeking documentation for the claims being made

expectationlost

In response to Councillor Damien O'Farrell's letter in the IT https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/sea-change-and-a-clontarf-wall-1.3351134

Conclusion and Recommendation
The analysis that I have carried out show that the current wall height (4.25m ODM) is justified based
on the design criteria used even though the components that make up this height differ slightly from
indicated values.
This still leaves the issue with regards to the loss of visual amenity and in this review I have
suggested a number of solutions. The majority of solutions considered have significant implications
in terms of costs, planning requirements and environmental effects and would be unlikely to resolve
the immediate issue. Therefore the recommendation that I would make is that DCC review the
design criteria and in particular the SLR allowance included in the design. My suggestion is that a
value in the range of 0.2‐0.3m be used (instead of 0.4) which would mean that by current mid range
SLR scenarios the wall height should still be sufficient to provide flood protect for at least 50 years.
This proposed adjustment of the wall height should only be applied at locations where the visual
amenity is most affected as agreed between DCC and local groups. If this solution is implemented
then DCC would need to frequently review both extreme water levels and sea level rise rates and
have a plan in place for increasing the wall height to ensure that there is a sufficient level of flood
protection.

http://naoise.ie/report-by-independent-expert-on-the-dollymount-flood-defence/ The review backs the council height and but then just throws it out for visual amenity's sake

Atlantic Dawn

Could they not have built the wall high and at the same time raised the road up so no view was lost or would that be too much sense?

Fighting Tao

Why do motorists need a view of anything other than the road? If they want a view they can park up and walk along the footpath beside the wall. This is ridiculous stuff altogether.

ekimiam

Atlantic Dawn wrote: »

Could they not have built the wall high and at the same time raised the road up so no view was lost or would that be too much sense?

what rubbish. missing most of the points here. its in front of a park and a wonderful area, ruined by a grey wall.
have a look at all the northside dart stations, there all miserable and gray.
we take to much substandard work from state bodies on this side of the liffey its about time they were told where to stick it.
this is dccs mess to clean up from bad planning and consultation.
dlr residents wouldn't stand for anything like we put up with.

odyssey06

Fighting Tao wrote: »

Why do motorists need a view of anything other than the road? If they want a view they can park up and walk along the footpath beside the wall. This is ridiculous stuff altogether.

If you want a better view you can even walk on the beach... but it comes back to DCC's absolute screw-up of the planning process where during all the public consultations and presentations they promised no sightlines would be affected.

And likely, we'll have driverless cars before we'll need the extra height on that wall (we're talking about 50 year horizons here), and some cars have passengers...

minikin

They should finish the walls with mirrors, some residents need to take a long hard look at themselves.

Rigor Mortis

Can we all just be honest here and admit that most objectors don't give a toss about drivers going by. It's a convenient excuse and it has been successful in this case. It is akin to the hoardes of pearl mussel enthusiasts that have emerged from the woodwork in rural UIreland any time a pylon, turbine or any other contentious project is proposed.

The locals didn't want this and they put forward a number of arguments, some genuine and some a bit more spurious.

odyssey06

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

The locals didn't want this and they put forward a number of arguments, some genuine and some a bit more spurious.

Good point, and if a council wants to push through a project under those circumstances they need to be very careful not to score any own goals whatsoever in the planning process...

Pete_Cavan

I don't buy this loss of visual amenity lark. Imo, if the only sightlines effected are for those in cars only (i.e. not including higher seated vehicles) for about a minute as you drive along there, then that isn't sufficient to constitute loss of visual amenity. From sitting in a car, you can still see the sea, Bull Island, Howth Head, the Ringsend chimneys, etc. for almost the entire length of the wall!

Look in Google Street View and you can compare the view now to that in 2009, the few metres of sea in the difference does not constitute loss of visual amenity.

Fighting Tao

odyssey06 wrote: »

If you want a better view you can even walk on the beach... but it comes back to DCC's absolute screw-up of the planning process where during all the public consultations and presentations they promised no sightlines would be affected.

So the residents are kicking up just to stick it to DCC?

odyssey06

Fighting Tao wrote: »

So the residents are kicking up just to stick it to DCC?

There's an element of that... relations are strained to say the least between DCC and locals. It's got to the stage where there is a total breakdown of trust.

There was the crazy plan in the 80s to turn the Clontarf side of the bay into an underground fuel storage depot which to Sean 'Dublin Bay' Loftus regularly being elected to the Dail on a platform against it.

And the more recent plan which DCC proposed to use a new flood defence scheme as a pretence to lay a watermain at surface level...
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/councillors-move-to-halt-clontarf-flood-defence-plan-as-locals-fear-loss-of-sea-views-1.615157

This has led to DCC leaving sandbags all along Clontarf so long they are now growing their own ecosystems... whereas before they only brought them out during times of flood risk.

Nothing DCC says on the subject of Clontarf can be trusted, and I don't believe that the current vote to lower the sea wall is purely about motorists views, at a basic level there aren't enough votes in that ... Some councillors have made reference to a 'mediation process' where the lowering was agreed e.g.
"Fine Gael councillor for Clontarf Naoise O Muiri said that the height decrease had already been agreed following a mediation process."
https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/reducing-height-of-sea-wall-is-a-waste-of-money-36474561.html

expectationlost

odyssey06 wrote: »

If you want a better view you can even walk on the beach... but it comes back to DCC's absolute screw-up of the planning process where during all the public consultations and presentations they promised no sightlines would be affected.

.

documentation

odyssey06

expectationlost wrote: »

documentation

"The scheme will have relatively low impact profiles from all strategic viewpoints."

See Section 4.8, photo 4.2 of this planning report document:
http://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/content//RoadsandTraffic/MajorTransportProjects/Documents/Part%20VIII%20Planning%20Report%20Dec%202012.pdf

This is not an accurate representation of what was actually built in the "Section showing most increase in flood defence wall."

expectationlost

odyssey06 wrote: »

"The scheme will have relatively low impact profiles from all strategic viewpoints."

See Section 4.8, photo 4.2 of this planning report document:
http://www.dublincity.ie/sites/default/files/content//RoadsandTraffic/MajorTransportProjects/Documents/Part%20VIII%20Planning%20Report%20Dec%202012.pdf

This is not an accurate representation of what was actually built in the "Section showing most increase in flood defence wall."

"no sightlines would be affected" is not "relatively low impact profiles from all strategic viewpoints" and the murray review report says they wall would slighlty restrict views of the lagoon on the park side

http://naoise.ie/report-by-independent-expert-on-the-dollymount-flood-defence/ you probably wouldn't agree with him describing it as slight

GreeBo

odyssey06 wrote: »

The good news is that approx half of that stretch doesn't have any residents

Has anyone told the sea that its not welcome on the other stretch and that its not allowed to use the road?

odyssey06 wrote: »

The reduced height will still provide protection against 1 in 100 year flood events for the next 50 years.

Rigor Mortis

It's not that we are anti-wall. Some of our best friends are walls. But we just don't want a wall here. The wall would be far happier living with other walls. Somewhere like China. But i need to be clear, the residents of Clontarf are not Wall-ist

humberklog

I can't figure out the big deal that residents (or passer-by's) have with the wall and don't really care.

My problem is is how did the wall get built incorrectly? There's an element of the wall that has been built too high with regards to the planning permission and there's another stretch that has been built too low (this seams to be reported on less but is just as important).


The original works went on way to long for what was being done and it wasn't even completed (not cladded) and what was done was done wrong.

Does anyone recall who the main contractors were that carried out the job?

Sleeper12

I'd only we had the councillors support on the St Anne's 8 story development

beertons

This people are really going to flip, when high rise start popping up.

odyssey06

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

It's not that we are anti-wall. Some of our best friends are walls. But we just don't want a wall here. The wall would be far happier living with other walls. Somewhere like China. But i need to be clear, the residents of Clontarf are not Wall-ist

Joe, we don't know where this wall came from. Nobody in Clontarf asked for it. Nobody knows who built it. It just turned up one night like it has no home to go to.
There's places in Ireland that are crying out for a wall. They could give the wall a good home where it will feel welcome and feel like it's doing an honest day's work. Is there no other town that could adopt the wall? The people of Clontarf will happily pay for the wall's train fare if there's some there to meet the wall at the station and show them the body of water they have to mark.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/storms/storm-frank-exhausted-residents-of-town-demand-defences-promised-to-them-years-ago-34325462.html

Rigor Mortis

odyssey06 wrote: »

Joe, we don't know where this wall came from. Nobody in Clontarf asked for it. Nobody knows who built it. It just turned up one night like it has no home to go to.
There's places in Ireland that are crying out for a wall. They could give the wall a good home where it will feel welcome and feel like it's doing an honest day's work. Is there no other town that could adopt the wall? The people of Clontarf will happily pay for the wall's train fare if there's some there to meet the wall at the station and show them the body of water they have to mark.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/storms/storm-frank-exhausted-residents-of-town-demand-defences-promised-to-them-years-ago-34325462.html

the train fare could be as much as 60 - 500k. you guys game for that much of a whip around

odyssey06

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

the train fare could be as much as 60 - 500k. you guys game for that much of a whip around

I know a man in need of a wall who can trump that offer...

expectationlost

humberklog wrote: »

I can't figure out the big deal that residents (or passer-by's) have with the wall and don't really care.

My problem is is how did the wall get built incorrectly? There's an element of the wall that has been built too high with regards to the planning permission and there's another stretch that has been built too low (this seams to be reported on less but is just as important).


The original works went on way to long for what was being done and it wasn't even completed (not cladded) and what was done was done wrong.

back this up with documentation please

humberklog

expectationlost wrote: »

back this up with documentation please

No.