The future development of the city must be led by the City Development Plan and by statutory Local Area Plans. It must not be led by developers’ “Masterplans” or “Framework Plans” as has been the case. This is required to ensure that:
- Growth in population does not contribute to sprawl onto existing greenfield sites.
- Growth is accommodated as much as possible in the city centre on infill and brownfield sites, in regeneration areas and in existing neighbourhoods before developing existing greenfield sites.
- Attractive places are created for people to live in.
- The right development happens in the right place at the right time
- People can live near where they work and the services and amenities they require thus avoiding, or at least reducing, the need to travel.
- Sustainable mixed communities are created where people can live healthy and fulfilled lives enjoy access to nature and avail of the services and amenities they need within a 15 minute journey by active travel modes.
- The city centre accommodates a significant permanent residential population in sustainable communities to maintain vibrancy an make it an attractive place to live.
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Schools are re-established in the city centre – the trend of pushing primary and secondary
schools out of the city centre to areas where they are difficult or impossible to reach safely
by active travel modes needs to stop and be reversed. -
Land use planning and transport planning are fully integrated to achieve a compact
sustainable city. -
The guidance in ‘Creating Places for People: The RIAI Town and Village Toolkit’ is followed.
https://www.riai.ie/uploads/files/general-files/RIAI_TownandVillageToolkit.pdf
The City Development Plan must:
- Set out a programme for eliminating homelessness.
- Set annual targets for delivery of social homes and ensure they are met.
- Set annual targets for delivering genuinely affordable homes and ensure they are met.
- Ensure publicly owned lands are used for both social and affordable homes.
- Stop relying on delivery of homes at inflated prices in private developments.
- Ensure that people have available to them, within their communities, a choice of homes, social homes, genuinely affordable homes and market price homes, that will meet their lifelong needs without having to leave their communities.
- Take account of the needs of the disadvantaged, isolated and marginalised, the growing cohort of elderly people, those with chronic illnesses, including those now suffering the effects of “Long Covid” and those with physical and mental disabilities.
- Ensure there is an adequate supply of homes in communities to enable people to live independent lives for as long as possible.
- Provide appropriate support for people who cannot live totally independently due to disabilities, mental or physical, ill-health or infirmity, but do not need to be in full-time residential care, to continue to live in their communities for as long as possible.
- Ensure there is appropriate accommodation available in communities for those who will support people who can continue to live independently with a measure of support.
- Encourage and reward innovative housing design to incentivise high quality and mixed housing types in developments (possibly by allowing derogation from the housing standards / guidelines).
- Establish a design review panel of experts (architects, urban designers, master planners, landscape architects, and researchers) to review key proposed developments. Refer to: https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/asset/document/DC%20Cabe%20Design%20Review%2013_W_0.pdf
- To avoid sprawl, review overly prescriptive existing housing guidelines with regards to space standards (i.e. distances to boundaries, private / public open space, overlooking, building heights, and passive surveillance) to allow for flexibility - this would need to be carefully controlled to avoid abuse.
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Complete space audit of green open spaces in relation to existing and proposed housing
stock in order to compensate for any found deficiency (i.e. Knocknacarra, Westside, and
Newcastle / Western Distributor Road). -
Ensure that green areas and blue spaces are linked via a city wide network of pedestrians
and cycle routes. A compressive assessment and city wide map of these linkages, indicating gaps and potential connectivity should be developed towards this objective. -
All developments must be within a 400m walking distance, not a radius, of a bus stop from
the furthest unit in the development. No development to get planning permission without
there being proven public transport capacity (as in would be the case with waste water
treatment). - All developments and public realm enhancements must favour pedestrian, cycle and public transport improvements with the anticipation that these forms of travel choice will become the primary forms of transport over the lifetime of the plan. Such a hierarchy of improvements is essential towards ensuring a modal shift away from private car use, which is essential in the context of the Climate Crisis and the liveability of Galway City.
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Develop housing around key transport hubs (i.e. Ceannt Station, the Inner Harbour lands
and the Harbour lands). - The spatial imbalance between mono zoned residential areas and key employment areas (I.e Parkmore) needs to be addressed by providing housing in close proximity to employment centres (or vice versa), providing safe active travel infrastructure, and regular / easily accessible public transport.
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Conduct city wide space audit of existing brownfield sites to identify opportunities for high
quality housing in key sites. - Properly maintain and enforce a vacant sites register.
- Set population target increase for key areas - i.e. city core via over shop living.
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Establish a housing design task force / roundtable sourcing expertise from other local
authorities, The Housing Agency, Approved Housing Bodies, Co-operative Housing Ireland,
the RIAI, local and national architectural design practice, and from international
organisations.