THE ADAMSTOWN DEVELOPMENT in Dublin stalled back in 2009 – and so far, only 1,250 of its homes and apartments are occupied.

To help prevent it being left as an unfinished, ‘ghost’ development, South Dublin County Council has stepped in.

Its councillors have voted to amend the Adamstown Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) planning scheme – Adamstown was Ireland’s first SDZ in 2003.

There was a lengthy public consultation process leading up to the decision, including public consultation meetings and a written submission stage.

Changes

The changes agreed by the council include a 20 per cent reduction in the overall number of residential units permitted – from 10,000 to 8,145 units.

According to Cllr Lavelle, this change in density “will allow more flexibility to provide more terraced town-housing in place of the apartment/duplex models which dominated to date”.

These changes will hopefully kickstart sustainable development in Adamstown. This will help meet demand and support construction jobs while ensuring that Adamstown is not left as another unfinished development which was local residents’ worst fear.

Transport changes were also agreed on today, including:

• Bringing forward the opening of new roads links from Adamstown to Dodsboro Road and Celbridge Road.
• Requirement to address existing traffic problems at Newcastle Road, to improve traffic flow and remove the bottleneck between Superquinn and the N4.
• Introduction, for the first time, of a cap on residential development (at phase 5) before a direct rail link to city centre is provided. The National Transport Authority said that they will facilitate this by reopening the Phoenix Park rail tunnel, to be followed eventually by DART Underground.
• Requirement for development of bus capacity to serve Adamstown at each phase of development.

Lavelle said that Adamstown residents were concerned that a change in density could result in poorer quality design. “I have proposed and secured agreement with management on a further amendment to the planning scheme requiring the provision of high quality design and finishes; and further explicitly empowering the planning authority to apply planning permission conditions addressing design issues,” he said.

Councillors also voted to protect the early delivery of community infrastructure including a large community centre and all-weather pitches in the current phase.

The council voted to agree a cross-party amendment tabled by councillors Lavelle (Fine Gael), Eamon Tuffy (Labour) and Guss O’Connell (Independent) which prevented the proposed deferral of the phasing requirement for a new swimming pool from the current ceiling of 2,600 residential units to a new ceiling of 4,600 units.

The council decision on amendments could still be appealed to an Bord Pleanala.

Read: Councils get ten million euro to spend on ghost estates>