COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF DEVELOPMENT PLAN MEETING

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

MOTION NO. 75

MOTION: Councillor E. O'Brien

This Council agrees that it should be a core principle of this Development Plan that build heights in the County be, where possible, consistent with existing build heights in already established housing areas.

REPORT:

The current Development Plan 2016 - 2022 [Policy 9: Building Heights] supports varied building heights across residential and mixed-use in the County alongside other objectives to respect existing building heights: H9 Objectives 2 and 3. Since the adoption of the current Development Plan, the National Planning Framework (NPF) has been published by the Government. National Policy Objective 13 in the NPF states “In urban areas, planning and related standards, including in particular building height and car parking will be based on performance criteria that seek to achieve well designed high quality outcomes in order to achieve targeted growth. These standards will be subject to a range of tolerance that enables alternative solutions to be proposed to achieve stated outcomes, provided public safety is not compromised and the environment is suitably protected.” Building Height Guidelines were published by the Department to support NPO 13 which promote increased building height as a means to prevent urban sprawl. They contain a Specific Planning Policy Requirement which planning authorities are required, under legislation, to comply with. The relevant SPPR in this instance is: “In accordance with Government policy to support increased building height and density in locations with good public transport accessibility, particularly town/ city cores, planning authorities shall explicitly identify, through their statutory plans, areas where increased building height will be actively pursued for both redevelopment, regeneration and infill development to secure the objectives of the National Planning Framework and Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies and shall not provide for blanket numerical limitations on building height.” In this context, the Planning Department have appointed consultants to examine building height in South Dublin, having regard to the requirement to comply with the Planning Guidelines and national policy. The outcome of the information will inform the preparation of the Draft Plan. In this context, the proposed motion is premature at this time.

Recommendation: It is recommended that this motion is adopted with amendment to recognise that this type of policy provision or objective is overly detailed for this strategic stage but could be considered as part of the draft plan preparation on foot of the strategic direction provided under the CE Recommendation (See Part 3) page 26 as follows:

‘Ensure that section 28 planning guidelines and associated specific planning policy recommendations inform the policies and objectives of the Draft Plan.’