In trying to freeze the potential future use of land now held by institutions the new Dublin City Council has lost the plot, writes Kevin Nowlan.
Fact: Dublin city is spread over the same land area as Paris but has only one eighth of the Paris population.
Fact: It is impossible to provide an efficient modern transport system in a one million-person city spread across a land area the size of Paris.
Fact: Within Dublin there is large amount of land which would be appropriate for development but has not yet been built on. Most of this land is in institutional use.
Fact: It is Government policy to ensure that such land which is located in appropriate locations is built upon to a high density, thereby increasing the number of residences in the location and thus supporting the concept of sustainability and combating urban sprawl.
Fact: The new Dublin City Council recently voted to stop such land coming forward for development.
Ten days ago the newly-elected Dublin city councillors proposed and adopted a policy in the Draft Development Plan to the effect that most institutional land could only be developed for social and affordable housing, if not required for institutional use. This was done on an ad-hoc basis and acting against the advice of the council's own professional planners and city management.
This policy is in conflict with the whole thrust of the Draft Development Plan which states that "the proposed strategy for Dublin promotes the consolidation of the city, maximising efficient use of land and integrating land use and transport".
The text of the Draft Development Plan then goes on to demonstrate how, by promoting high-density development and bringing unused land forward for early development, the draft plan integrates with the Dublin Regional Strategic Planning Guidelines, the National Spatial Strategy and the strategies of the Dublin Transport Office.
If, as is proposed, the councillors' restriction on the development of institutional land is included in the final version of the Dublin Development Plan what will happen is that all the "green" land in Dublin, that one sees when taking off or landing from Dublin Airport, will still be "green" in 10 years' time. It will mean that further residential development will be forced out of the Dublin city area and into the adjoining counties and thereby further exasperating the transport problems in the city and the suburbs.
The councillors don't seem to realise that such a policy will produce not one additional social or affordable house. This is because the institutional property owners will just sit on their land and not bring it forward for development.
The councillors seem to have forgotten the fundament laws of economics, as well as the fact that institutions by definition have the capacity to do nothing without incurring pain or criticism.
The prospect of securing a good price for their land is the only motivation for institutions to bring that land forward for development, be they religious, educational or the State. If the price is not attractive then most institutions will just go on doing what they have done for years, continue to occupy inefficient buildings in lovely landscaped settings.
The issue of social and affordable housing in Dublin has already been provided for by the 2000 Planning Act. Every developer has to allocate 20 per cent of their units in any new development for social and affordable dwellings. This is a burden that was initially contested by the development community, but has been grudgingly accepted and is now a standard of all developments.
In effect the actions of the councillors will reduce the number of these units created, as less development will take place within the city area due to this policy, and thus less social and affordable units will be constructed.
Bringing land forward for development only makes sense if an institution secures a good price. The money received is usually spent on some form of community facilities.
It is a win-win situation. The institution wins by getting money to fund modern facilities, the community wins by getting homes in well-located, mature locations, the transport system moves towards efficiency, the local authority receives levies to pay for additional infrastructure required in the area.
To put the issue in perspective: let us say there are 200 acres of institutional land available in Dublin city that would come forward for development in the six-year life of this development plan.
Those 200 acres could be developed at an average of 30 residential units per acre, i.e., 6,000 housing units.
This would make a major contribution to the housing shortage in Dublin and give new homes to 6,000 individuals or couples. Included in this amount would be 1,200 social and affordable units.
The writer's office has been involved in a consultancy role in several situations whereby institutional land was sold after securing planning permission. Those lands were then developed for high-density residential development. The landowner, being a charity, took the entire proceeds and invested it in modern community facilities.
An example of a recent project organised and managed by us was the "swap" of a site of 4.5 acres in Donnybrook occupied by old inefficient buildings, for a modern 65-bed nursing home in the suburbs. If the zoning restrictions now proposed by Dublin City Council had been in place then this deal would not have taken place.
It is not too late for the city councillors to reverse this unwise decision and to consider the broader picture.
Kevin Nowlan is a partner in the W.K. Nowlan and Associates, consultants specialising in investment and development advice to land and property owners (kevin@wkn.ie)