Local residents to consider Treasury plan for Stillorgan

A masterplan from Treasury Holdings for the redevelopment of parts of the Dublin suburb of Stillorgan is to be considered by local residents next month.

The plan, drawn up by urban designers John Thompson & Partners for Treasury Holdings, was developed following a community planning weekend and includes the complete redesign of the road layout in Stillorgan village.

It also includes a new library, retail areas, residential development, public squares and exhibition spaces.

The planning weekend was set up following the rejection of three applications to redevelop Stillorgan Shopping Centre.

An Bord Pleanála is currently considering a fourth application for the redevelopment of the shopping centre by Treasury Holdings.

The first three applications attracted considerable opposition from local residents and although some consultation was carried out with residents on the fourth application, it was also opposed by many.

Treasury Holdings was granted permission to redevelop a second site in Stillorgan, known as Blake's, with a mixed use development including a 12-storey tower, which residents had also opposed. And a third application, for Stillorgan Bowl Leisureplex, incorporating a 15-storey tower, was rejected by the board last year.

Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council began preparing its own local area plan for Stillorgan in 2004, however, due to limited staff resources and a large number of major planning applications in 2005, its production has been delayed.

The Treasury plan will be submitted to council planners prior to the completion of the draft local area plan, which is expected to come before councillors before the summer.

Charles Campion, director of collaborative planning with John Thompson & Partners, said that the plan will require a lot of work to develop and does not include anything on the scale of that already given permission for the Blake's site.

"The consultation was a meaningful process. The message coming across was that people wanted the redevelopment to support community-based activity as well as commercial," he aid.

A key aspiration, Mr Campion said, was to see an appropriate scale and density of development with the central area of Stillorgan.

"This is a vision we developed three days after the community weekend. We will get the facts and figures and there is a lot of technical work to be done, but we hope we've got the first step right."

Barry Saul, Progressive Democrats activist and former local councillor, welcomed the initiative but said that any major developments for Stillorgan should form a part of the Stillorgan Local Area Plan.

"The residents and their associations in Stillorgan have long battled for a clear strategic plan for Stillorgan to deal with major issues like traffic, height and scale and public amenities," Mr Saul said.

"This new blueprint from Treasury has to take account of the wishes of local residents through Dún Laoghaire's Stillorgan Local Area Plan."

Donal Brady, spokesman for the Stillorgan District Community and Residents Alliance, said that they were unhappy that the feedback session after the weekend seminar was "exclusively one-way - from the developers to the community".

"It appears to us that the ultimate motivation of Treasury's new consultative approach is to turn the village of Stillorgan into a town by changing the planning status to 'town centre' to 'district centre' and introduce the intensive development and massive scale that comes with such a change," he said.