South Dublin County Council has drafted a new masterplan for the centre of Tallaght, with the emphasis on developing family-sized apartments to counter population decline in the area, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor
The draft local area plan also envisages creating new streets, civic spaces and a public park as well as a range of "people-intensive" town-centre uses based on high-quality urban design.
Tallaght town centre has seen intensive development within the past 10 years, amounting to a third of a million square metres (nearly four million square feet). This includes 2,500 apartments as well as shopping, office and leisure uses.
This has been delivered through an Integrated Area Plan (IAP), tax-incentive designation and State-led investment, including one of the largest hospitals in Ireland.
Employment in the town centre has doubled to almost 10,000.
Tallaght is now linked to the city centre by Luas and will soon acquire a new stadium and arts centre in addition to the County Library and Civic Theatre. There are also plans to extend the Square shopping centre and the local Garda station.
The council's new masterplan aims to sustain this momentum and guide the next stage of development through a series of local framework plans for each of 15 "precinct" areas, setting out how they are to be phased and implemented.
One of the objectives is to address population decline as a result of falling household size, particularly in the more established parts of Tallaght around the town centre, where services and facilities built up over the years are now underused.
The number of new pupils enrolling in the 17 primary and five post-primary schools within a 1km radius of the town centre is in decline. Over the past 10 years, combined enrolments have fallen by 20 per cent and 24 per cent respectively.
To encourage more "family-friendly" development, the county council will require the provision of small-scale children's play areas within new residential schemes in and around the town centre - starting with one toddler play area per 25 apartments.
The draft plan aims to increase quality and choice and encourage greater levels of owner-occupation in future developments by specifying a minimum average size of 75sq m (807sq ft) requirement for every residential scheme. Minimum sizes for individual apartments are being set significantly higher than current standards at 45sq m (484sq ft) for one-bedroom units, 70sq m (753sq ft) for two-bedroom units and 85sq m (915sq ft) for three-bedroom units.
There will also be a requirement for a dedicated on-site concierge/caretaker apartment, covered by legal agreement, as well as the provision of a managed community meeting space within each scheme at a rate of 0.3sq m per residential unit.
Members of the public are being invited to express their views on the plan, with May 24th set as the deadline for submissions.
The draft Tallaght Town Centre Local Area Plan will be on public display in the main foyer of county hall and in the county library until May 24th.
It will also be available from today on South Dublin County Council's website, www.sdcc.ie