Sir, – Una Mullally, in “More gardaí on Dublin’s Streets won’t repair its broken soul” (Opinion & Analysis, September 11th) cites urbanist Jane Jacobs, who recognised in her book on urbanism, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), that the city is a complex ecosystem of physical and social interactions and that city planners and other built environment professionals need to respect this diversity when managing and planning the urban environment in order to achieve vibrant liveable cities.
Jane Jacobs’s advocacy for respectful city planning is best provided for in the area-based approach known as integrated area planning where physical, economic, social and environmental considerations are brought together creating a “shared vision” of place. Area-based planning engages local communities, businesses and landowners in a meaningful participative plan-making process.
The successes and lessons learned over almost four decades of urban renewal, beginning with the Urban Renewal Act in 1986, provides the State and Dublin city with an inheritance of holistic plan-led urban regeneration including the plan-led development of the Dublin Docklands, which provided 20 per cent social and affordable housing on-site in all mixed-use office and residential developments.
The latent inequalities in the city have been spotlighted during the pandemic and are post-pandemic clearly visible on city centre streets and in public spaces. Unfortunately urban planning has embraced a project-based planning model which is principally developer-led focused on the activation of the individual development site without the guidance of democratically agreed area-based local policies and objectives. Objectives that would address, among other things, at a neighbourhood level local housing requirements, community and cultural infrastructure and land-use diversity.
The modus operandi to mediate urban development through developer-led proposals that are on balance not informed by a bespoke local policy context is suboptimal. It may be argued that this tendency has resulted in concentrated local opposition to development proposals that have in instances resulted in highly publicised judicial reviews in the courts.
The alternative is an area-based, plan-led model. In this regard there is a requirement for neighbourhood-level plans. It is evident at present there is a gap between the high-level policy framework provided by the Dublin City Development Plan and the requirements of local communities. The requirement for more detailed area planning and spatial targeting in order to achieve a finer-grain vision for the city including integrated housing delivery (affordable, social and market homes) would inform adjudication on individual planning applications.
It is argued that the role of good spatial planning is to channel physical change to realise a shared vision of place integrating physical, economic, social and environmental considerations guiding and promoting private and public investment while achieving sustainable urban development and public policy goals. – Yours, etc,
ANTHONY ABBOTT KING,
(Former Senior Planner
of the Dublin Docklands
Development Authority),
Dublin 7.