PLANNING FUNCTIONS:THE DUBLIN Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) used its planning powers to facilitate, rather than regulate development, a draft report on the authority's planning functions and structures has found.
The report by planning consultants Declan Brassil Co identified “consistent procedural, management and decision-making weaknesses” in relation to the determination of development applications by the authority. It found a substantial number of approvals for development could be considered as not complying with the planning regulations for the docklands areas.
The report, which makes 41 recommendations, also criticised the lack of intervention or oversight by the Department of the Environment into the authority’s activities and said there appeared to have been very little opportunity for Dublin City Council to hold the DDDA executive board to account.
Commissioned by the DDDA board following a direction by Minister for the Environment John Gormley last August, the report focuses its criticism on the lack of separation between the authority’s statutory planning function and its property and development arm. A review of the workings of its planning section “indicates that its planning function . . . has been subordinated to the authority’s development function”. It also strongly suggests that planning appeared “significantly influenced by the authority’s development remit”.
“Examination of the internal structure and functioning of planning within the authority indicates that it has operated as an enabling tool to promote development in the docklands.”
It was apparent, the report said, that the planning team “found itself under pressure” to make recommendations on development applications which were “very difficult to justify”.
The report does not identify an individual or individuals as the source of the pressure, but said the organisation’s culture had development as the dominant influence to which planning had to bend. This pressure intensified as the “development boom” came to an end and landowners sought to maximise the value of sites acquired at the top of the market, it said.
This assessment was supported by a review of approval rates which reached a height of 98 per cent in the period September 2005 to September 2006. From January 2003 to October 2009, some 398 development applications were made to the authority. Of these, 349 were granted and only 10 refused. The remainder were withdrawn, cancelled or were still going through the process. The report reviewed a representative sample of 39 of these decisions, but does not identify those reviewed. However, in general, it found “no evident coherent or consistent standards applied to the content and quality” of the required application documents submitted. The authority showed an over-reliance on the documentation provided by developers and did little independent checking.
Planning reports provided an inadequate level of information to allow an informed view of whether the development complied with the planning regulations. Relevant submissions made by Dublin City Council were rarely referred to in the DDDA’s planners’ reports.
The report also reviews the Finlay Geoghegan judgment against the DDDA in October 2008, which found it acted outside its powers and breached fair procedures in approving a development by North Quay Investments Ltd.
In this case, an agreement made prior to the approval that the developers would hand over land to the authority raised concerns that the executive was pre-empting due process, the report said. The finding of Ms Justice Finlay Geoghegan did “were not unique to that particular case”.
It was surprising it said that the department had never thought it necessary to undertake its own review of the authority’s operations and that its “light touch” should be swapped for a hands on approach.
DDDA : What Is It?
What is the DDDA?
The Dublin Docklands Development Authority is the body responsible for the development of a 1,300 acre zone either side of the river Liffey. It has overall responsibility for rejuvenating the city’s redundant port area, including the Custom House Docks.
On the south side, it stretches from Butt Bridge to the Poolbeg power station, and on the north from Amiens Street to East Wall Road.
The authority’s stated duty is to secure “the improvement of the physical environment of the Dublin Dockland Area” and “the social and economic regeneration of the Dublin Dockland’s area on a sustainable basis”.
When was it formed?
The authority was formed in 1997 under the Dublin Docklands Development Authority Act. It succeeded the Custom House Docks Development Authority, formed 10 years earlier, which oversaw the development of the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) and surrounding area.
Who appoints the board?
The board is appointed by the Minister for the Environment for a maximum five-year term.
What went wrong?
The authority had access to fast-track planning powers that effectively allowed it to bypass the normal Dublin City Council planning process.
The reports published yesterday found that this power led to a conflict between the planning and the development functions of the authority, with the development side almost invariably winning out.
This led, the reports state, to a series of developments that do not comply with the authority’s own planning regulations.
And what about the Irish Glass Bottle site?
Until 2006, the authority was effectively a strategic planning and development group. In late 2006, it secured permission from the Government to dramatically increase its permitted borrowings to allow it enter a joint venture with developer Bernard McNamara and others to buy the Irish Glass Bottle site in a €412 million deal.
Following the property crash, the site is now valued at no more than €60 million.
And what about corporate governance?
Niamh Brennan, the current chairwoman of the authority , has said they there were “systemic conflicts of interest” between the DDDA and the now failed Anglo Irish Bank, including shared directors.
