Sir, - The record shows that Dublin city's manager and chief architect are responsible for the decision to grant permission for five enormous buildings - including an 80-metre skyscraper - opposite the Custom House on George's Quay. The chief planner recommended refusal.
Planners also opposed the major hotel and office scheme, now again under way off College Green, though it got enthusiastic support from the former city manager and the city architect.
An Taisce has argued that these are the two individual schemes most damaging to the fabric of the city centre in 20 years.
The deliberate sidelining of the Corporation's planning department is also manifest in important areas of the draft Dublin City Development Plan (particularly in the relaxation of standards affecting both conservation and height) and in the way parts of some of the city's rejuvenation areas (particularly the "HARP" area) are being allowed to develop.
There is a danger that architecture is being used as a weapon to undermine proper planning. Planners are trained to take into account a broad range of strategic factors - not just architecture (though certainly that too) but also architectural context, community and social factors, provision of amenities, conservation and - significantly - democratically-submitted objections. While architects inevitably focus on architecture, planning is a more comprehensive discipline. For this reason, where architecture conflicts with good planning it is surely in the interest of the city that it is good planning that prevails. - Yours, etc., Michael Smith,
Chairman, Dublin City Association, An Taisce, Tailors' Hall, Dublin 8.