Sir, - Frank McDonald chides Dublin Corporation for the pastiche development now reaching completion on Bachelors Walk. His disdain for the scheme represents a coherent point of view but when he seems to indicate that An Taisce, the RIAI and others should have appealed the scheme to An Bord Pleanala he loses the run of himself.
An Taisce is not shy in taking a principled and uncompromising stance - as for example in its objections to the Hilton Hotel scheme which proposes to demolish or emasculate much of the College Street area - a scheme defended by Frank McDonald.
On the other hand where a principled appeal would probably lead to a scheme that was actually worse, then like any lawyer, we think long and hard before an appeal.
An Taisce decided not to appeal the Bachelors Walk scheme because, for two reasons, there was simply no prospect of getting anything better. Firstly, when we had to make the vital decision on whether to appeal there was no chance of an architectural competition which might have produced an exceptional contemporary design for the site. Indeed Zoe, the developers, had never built anything in the least exciting. At that stage I believe they did not even employ any accredited architects. There was no prospect of Zoe building Dublin's Hundertwasser Haus; the priority had to be to prevent tide semi pastiche mess they had made of Arran Quay.
Secondly, since the criterion for assessing planning applications is "proper planning and development", there was no chance of An Bord Pleanala requiring something exceptional or exciting - it never does. All the Bord requires is that development be proper. In the case of high profile sites, proper planning and development" is plainly inadequate. To justify developing a site as pivotal as Bachelors Walk, it should be necessary to prove that the quality of what is proposed is exceptional. Unfortunately the planning Acts (and therefore An Bord Pleanala which operates under them) do not seem to recognise this.
It is important to apportion blame correctly for the shoddy banality that often passes as modern apartment living in Dublin City. It lies with (a) developers and their "architects", (b) the planning regime which indulges them and (c) the tax incentives which encourage them and do not require quality standards. It does not lie with individual planners.
Whatever its merits, Bachelors Walk 1996 is better than anything that would have resulted from a principled appeal. - Yours, etc.,
Chairman,
An Taisce Dublin
City Planning Committee,
Tailors Hall,
Dublin 8.