COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT SPC

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

HEADED ITEM NO. 2

Sub Committee on Policy on Maintaining Existing Residential Cul-De-Sacs

REPLY:

Introduction

A meeting of this sub committee was held on 8^th February 2007 in the Planning Conference Room, Planning Department, South Dublin County Council. The following members of the sub committee and staff attended:

Cllr. Eamonn Tuffy (Chair), Mr. Justin Byrne, Ms Siobhan Duff and Mr. Stephen Rhys Thomas. Cllr Joe Neville and Ms Patricia Devlin tendered apologies.

The following report on the meeting includes reference to the issues discussed and provides a commentary from the planners on the wide ranging discussion which took place. This report attempts to clarify the issues which have been raised at the meetings of this sub committee to date, with a view to providing a framework for the terms of a final report from the sub-committee.

Presentation

A PowerPoint presentation, illustrating various types of cul-de-sacs in and around the Verschoyle/Corbally area of Citywest, was made by Planning Department Staff.

Issues

Discussion centred on the examples in the presentation and parallels with other areas in the County, notably Tullyhall in Lucan. The issues of concern reflect the dilemmas discussed at earlier meetings. Dilemmas arise between phasing development with a good standard of amenity, which creates “cul de sacs” expectations for residents at boundaries between developed and undeveloped zoned land and the coherent and efficient development of residential land in a sustainable manner. The main issues are:

• A clear distinction should be made between a termination of a street at a site boundary adjoining undeveloped zoned lands, which are intended as a temporary design for phasing coherent development, and specifically designed cul-de-sacs, i.e. (up to 10 or 12 houses surrounding a short, narrow accessway, which is often cobbled providing a shared parking/pedestrian function).
• The issues concern ‘temporary terminations of streets’, albeit for 10 or 15 years, rather than designed cul de sacs. Residents with access onto ‘temporary terminations of streets’, have an expectation that their ”cul de sac” amenity will remain, while planners and developers have designed these streets as a first phase of development of the zoned lands, thus ‘temporary terminating streets’ are not considered by these professionals as ‘cul de sacs’.

Questions

The following questions were posed. It must be acknowledged that these issues cannot be addressed through the planning application process:

• Could a cul-de-sac be designated as being unavailable for opening after a set period of time?
• How can people buying in to ‘cul-de-sacs’ with the potential to be opened up, be made aware of this?

Planning Considerations

• The current County Development Plan sets out various standards for access to the wider road network. The aim of this policy is to avoid the current phenomena of vehicular congestion at estate entrances and inefficient pedestrian routes within developments where large numbers of dwellings, in cul-de-sac layout off a spine road, are served by only one major access onto the wider public network.
• It was considered that a variation to the Development Plan was not the appropriate mechanism to address the issues of access to adjoining undeveloped zoned lands from cul de sacs or temporary terminations of a street at a site boundary.
• Cul-de-sacs have distinct qualities:-
  1. Provision of residential security and sense of identity,
  2. Phasing development (i.e. a temporary termination of a street at a site boundary adjoining undeveloped zoned lands)
  3. Traffic management, and
  4. Restrictions of geography (e.g. a change in gradients) or property ownership boundaries.

Assessment Criteria for Planning Applications

Having regard to the impact of proposed development on existing established cul-de-sacs, where access from an existing terminating street/cul de sac is proposed, consideration should be given to protecting the amenity of established and existing ‘cul-de-sacs’. Examples include:

1. Planning application site layouts should indicate that a temporary termination of a street at a site boundary adjoining undeveloped zoned lands may be used as a access route in the future.

2. Where an established, temporary termination of a street at a site boundary adjoining undeveloped zoned lands or cul de sac is proposed to be opened, consideration should be given, where practicable, to incorporating traffic calming at the junction of the existing terminating street and the new access. Open green space should be locatedin the new development close to the junction as a method of recognising the amenity offered by the former temporary terminating street, or cul de sac.

3. Where practicable, cul-de-sacs should only be opened up to facilitate a secondary access to development lands. Primary access to development lands should be pursued away from the issue of cul-de-sac opening.

4. When a development is proposed for landlocked sites, all avenues regarding access should be assessed before resorting to the opening up of cul-de-sacs.

Recommendation

It is recommended that the SPC notes the assessment criteria set out above and that these criteria be brought to the attention of the Development Management Staff in the Planning Department.