An Integrated Planning System for 21st Century Ireland

The current Irish planning system is broken and dysfunctional. Many local communities find themselves constantly vigilant against future development proposals; developers are concerned about risks and uncertainties; while local councillors are under pressure from interest groups.

These problems need to be addressed if we are to create a system which meets the needs of Irish citizens, given the population growth of 1,000,000 additional people and an anticipated need for between 800,000 and 1.2 million new homes by 2040. The current housing crisis will be exacerbated if the systemic problems of our planning system are not addressed.

Many complications result from the fact that the Irish planning system, enacted in the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act 1963 and subsequent amendments, is based on the equivalent English Town and Country Planning Act 1947. This in turn was the result of a pact between British politicians to ensure that Labour’s New Town proposals were not repealed, while the Conservatives sought a discretionary laissez-faire system for the private sector. In the Irish 1963 Act, the principle of the discretionary system – which suited contemporary Irish culture unenthusiastic about the prospect of a planning control system – was simply repeated.

However, the Irish planning system is no longer functioning properly and there is no immediate resolution to address conflicting interests and meet the needs of society. Recently, there has been a significant increase in the number of judicial review challenges to planning permissions, which is beginning to impact Ireland’s ability to attract continued Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), as news of this uncertainty reaches the boardrooms of investors in New York, London, and Frankfurt. We therefore need a planning system in which all stakeholders can have confidence, and the future form of cities and towns is clearly articulated, understandable, and sustainable.

A Way Forward?

There are positive signs and opportunities opening up to counter this. The Project Ireland 2040: A National Planning Framework (NPF) policy initiative, first published in 2018, was intended to advance sustained, long-term, and regionally balanced progress on social, economic, and environmental fronts. Meanwhile, the Planning and Development Act 2024 is a hybrid between the British/Irish and European planning systems.

It contains optional provisions, particularly in relation to Urban Development Zones (UDZ), which could encourage the adoption of European-style planning and urban design approaches and methodologies in Ireland. An Urban Development Zone has the potential to express its aims and intentions as a masterplan for a neighbourhood in written, map, and 3D form, which would also facilitate community engagement, briefing, and consultation. Once an Urban Development Zone Masterplan is agreed, it automatically confers planning permission.

The European Planning System

The production of a Development Plan in written and map form is at variance with the methods used in most EU countries. In Ireland and the UK, Development Plans are generally large, complex, and difficult to understand documents. However, many EU countries have successfully developed an integrated urban design, planning, and infrastructure implementation system, and a focused approach to the design and management of new communities, land use planning, and the financing and integrated implementation of infrastructure. So it is critical that we learn from European exemplars.

In most European countries – in particular Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Spain, and Portugal – the future development plans for cities and towns are integrated and include planning, urban design, and infrastructure in the form of models and three-dimensional images. Planning departments typically comprise many planners and urban designers continually involved in planning areas of the city, while development control requires only a small number of staff as an administrative function. There is a sense of ownership of the City or Town Vision by all parties across the political spectrum: it is their plan, and they are proud to explain it to visitors.

Urban Development Zones

The Irish Planning and Development Act 2024 contains optional provisions which could address this type of shortcoming. The implementation of Part 22, Urban Development Zones, offers the potential to produce a local authority’s aims and objectives as a vision in written, map, and three-dimensional form.

Planning permission for a development application in compliance with the various criteria of the UDZ Masterplan would automatically be granted and would not be open to further appeal. This would reduce the need for large development control departments and allow planners and urban designers to focus on actively planning places.

This has the potential to create a situation where citizens, local representatives, urban designers, architects, planners, builders, and developers can all understand and have confidence in the planned futures of cities and towns. It also has the potential, when implemented, to provide a pipeline of 10–15 UDZ Masterplans per annum, providing planning certainty over the next 25–35 years, so that we can address the housing, community mixed-use, and infrastructure challenges facing twenty-first-century Ireland.

New Vision for Irish Cities

Project Ireland 2040 is a long-term Government strategy aimed at securing sustained and regionally balanced progress on social, economic, and environmental fronts. There are a number of projected challenges facing Ireland and its capital city, including:

• A population increase of approximately 1 million people

• Over 20% of the population being over 65 years of age

• Over 500,000 additional people at work

• Between 800,000 and 1.2 million homes needed close to services and amenities

• Rebuilding community and commercial life in city and town centres while protecting rural communities

We must plan to accommodate all this growth. Critics point to the lack of affordable housing, a pressurised healthcare system, and inadequate public transport as reasons why Irish cities will become less attractive and competitive in the future.

There is a danger that Dublin’s success and economic growth is perceived as resulting from a disproportionate share of the spoils of the knowledge industry sector, while smaller towns are allowed to stagnate. Project Ireland 2040 aims to encourage growth in Cork, Limerick, Galway, Waterford, and Sligo and recognises the value of cities as primary centres for technological innovation, wealth creation, and social progress, providing well-paid jobs and raising living standards.

Creating the density required for urban clustering, public transport, infrastructure, and adequate affordable housing will require more than merely laying down a network of new roads for a city which spans into its hinterland; it is estimated that the Greater Dublin Area will require at least 250,000 to 350,000 new homes over the next twenty-five years alone.

Such a focus runs counter to the laissez-faire philosophy ingrained in many of the national policies that have underpinned Ireland’s economic growth since the mid-1980s. Future growth and the enhancement of the city are dependent on our ability to nurture the evolution of a compact city form, which is essential for Dublin to be competitive, equitable, and sustainable.

Sustainable Urbanism

Sustainable urbanism needs to be at the centre of our agenda for economic prosperity. If we are to experience the fruits of a widely shared and equitable prosperity, we must become a more fully urbanised society. Successful urban economies are nurtured not by extreme densities and tall buildings, but by mid-rise, mixed-use density, which promotes mixing and interaction.

The densification of former derelict industrial areas in cities and towns will be an important part of this process. Strategic, well-planned infrastructure investment can help to increase the scale of areas available for regeneration and development, with connections between outlying towns and clustered development close to city centres.

It is also time to balance the relative levels of subsidy for private cars and public transport. New inventions like self-driving and electric vehicles and on-demand digital delivery systems will play important roles in the future. However, public transport will be essential to provide the connections that can enable dense, mixed-use, clustered, affordable neighbourhoods to be developed. Ultimately, our objective should be to provide the means to move people around efficiently and with appropriate housing densities and affordability to encourage economic growth.

This represents a fundamental challenge to society and should be seen as an exciting opportunity for architects, urban designers, and planners. This optimistic outlook sees Ireland as well-positioned to be the only English-speaking country in the European Union and an attractive location for continued foreign direct investment from the US, which has been enhanced by Brexit. However, this scenario will only occur if we plan for it.

Good urbanism in the UK and US is the exception rather than the norm, and in Ireland, located between Anglo-American and European cultural influences, we need to adopt a balanced approach to managing and enhancing the urban environment. There is an opportunity for Ireland’s towns and cities to intensify and develop inspired by the best European examples – rather than the worst excesses of the ‘Celtic Tiger’ economy – and involve inclusive dialogue and the power of civic society.

In Nordic countries, cities are part of an ongoing process of evolution nurtured by a blend of elected officials, wealth, and innovation. Irish cities and towns must similarly show that collaboration is fundamental to producing sustainable urban centres.

The Future Vision

The population of Ireland is anticipated to grow from 7.2 million people today to 11 million by 2070. Since the late 20th century we have underestimated population growth and set targets for infrastructure, housing, and development that were too low.

Our ports, airports, transport networks, piped and wired infrastructure, public services, and housing must get ahead of this already baked-in population growth. There is a need for greater devolution to regional and local authorities with appropriate planning and urban design staffing across all levels of governance to properly plan and design urban areas.

European City Models

Successful European cities have much greater autonomy and resources devoted to urban design, sustainable urbanism, and project development than in Ireland. They collect up to 40% of their capital budgets through local taxes, and the uplift in land values from re-zoning or remediation accrues primarily to the public purse.

The common good is the basis of decision-making about the design and management of urban development. Area planning, infrastructure, and public services are provided in an integrated manner before building development commences; compact neighbourhoods are the building blocks, and high-frequency public transport, linked to active travel, is adapting to a carbon-free future.

Ireland, like Britain, needs to apply these principles to improving its towns and cities to demonstrate that collaboration is fundamental to good urbanism.

Climate Change and Urban Resilience

Irish cities require key infrastructure planning and investment to ensure resilience. They must decarbonise, conserve land, protect the natural world, enhance biodiversity, and foster climate resilience as they respond to population growth.

They must be more land-efficient within new and existing suburbs, and plan for a carbon-free world as “cities of short distances.” Think of net-zero places in which to live and work, with green infrastructure linking people to the natural world, and public transport as a variety of mass transit vehicles, changing as technology dictates.

Planning Sustainable and Resilient Urban Growth

Cities must be recognised as the engines of social, economic, and cultural lives, and treated with imagination and care.

Transformative city planning and urban design can be delivered by:

• Dismantling silo cultures in local, regional, and national government to facilitate collaborative thinking, policymaking, and action.
• Resourcing regional and local authorities to allow them to envision, design, and manage their regions, cities, and towns.
• Equipping planners, architects, and urbanists with urban design leadership skills to guide the densification of existing suburbs and design new neighbourhoods.
• Ensuring that future city plans are presented in integrated formats and define the design parameters of future neighbourhoods, providing greater clarity and transparency for local people.
• Strengthening the form of cities with defined Urban Development Zones of small blocks, urban streets, active streetscapes, and a pedestrian-friendly public realm.
• Developing active and public transport networks and demanding high-quality architectural design in fulfilment of good planning guidance.

A New Integrated European Planning System

There have been success stories in the Irish planning system: the Dublin Docklands Development Authority and Dublin City Council’s Local Area Plans for the North and South Docks, Temple Bar, as well as Adamstown, Clonburris, and Cherrywood Strategic Development Zones (SDZ).

These projects were based on an integrated scheme for a new neighbourhood where the public realm and the building massing, heights, and uses were all determined in advance. This enabled the prompt processing of planning applications and commencement of development once proposals complied with the planning scheme.

The most important lesson is that successful urban growth and regeneration is best implemented either by a dedicated multidisciplinary team in a city planning department – as in Aarhus, Barcelona, Copenhagen, Freiberg, Gothenburg, Hamburg, Helsinki, Malaga, or Stockholm – or a dedicated public agency as in Dublin Docklands, Hamburg, Leipzig, or the Dutch Vinex development.

These all have the professional competence to prepare urban masterplans and engage with both the private sector and community groups for implementation.

Such success requires the creation of a vision and an urban framework plan responsive to the evolving needs of the city or town, as well as engagement in partnership, winning the trust of local people to unravel and resolve the complexities of delivering a sustainable future plan.

The preparation of 3D models is key to this process, as they can describe all the city’s elements in considerable detail, including street layouts, buildings, open spaces, and the height and massing of individual buildings.

Future Ireland

A century from now, when we are long forgotten, future Irish generations will be living with the consequences of decisions and actions made today for our cities and towns. Irish policymakers, urban designers, architects, engineers, and planners are capable of delivering initiatives aimed at promoting quality in urban design and ensuring that urban renewal schemes and extensions to villages, towns, and cities are well-designed, integrated, and sustainable.

By moving away from existing Irish planning practices and the discretionary planning system through to the adoption of EU best practice, citizens, local representatives, designers, planners, builders, and developers can be brought together in a common understanding of, and commitment to, a shared planned future for cities and towns.

What is needed now is for the Irish Government to implement the Planning and Development Act 2024, in particular the Urban Development Zone section. This will bring the Irish planning system into line with best practice in most EU countries.

This planning framework, supported by sustained and targeted public investment and well-aligned national and EU policies, will hopefully be ahead of the curve of Ireland’s economic, social, and demographic development, and can help to ensure continued sustainable growth.