It’s time to wind up the Docklands Strategic Development Zone, says oversight forum

When a part of the Docklands was designated a “strategic development zone” a decade ago, Jim Hargis was determined that locals would benefit, he says.

The manager of the education and training hub at St Andrews Resource Centre in Pearse Street wanted communities to see positives from the massive amount of construction it would bring.

A strategic development zone (SDZ) is an area with special planning rules. In this case, those rules were thrashed out and agreed between developers, local residents, planners and council officials in rounds of talks.

The Docklands SDZ layed out, for example, how high buildings should go in different places, which facilities different neighbourhoods needed, and how sites should balance offices for jobs, and homes to live in.

Sometimes an SDZ can include rules that developers should employ locals on building projects.

“I’ve been involved in a lot of local labour schemes but many didn’t work well for locals,” says Hargis. In his experience, dictating to developers or subcontractors that they employ a certain percentage of local people on projects never took.

So instead, staff at St Andrews Resource Centre built links with the employers and quizzed them about what skillsets they needed, he says. They set up a three-week programme to provide long-term unemployed people with the skills, equipment and certificates they needed to work on building sites.

Since then, they have trained around 1,000 people, he says, and around 600 of those ended up in jobs. That’s well above average for a short-term back-to-work employment scheme, says Hargis. “It’s extraordinary.”

The programme has been one of the tangible benefits of the SDZ to those who live in the Docklands, as the area has been transformed into gleaming rows of glass-fronted office and apartment buildings.

This SDZ includes the tech-y area around Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Hanover Quay and Grand Canal Dock on the south side of the Liffey, as well as the area where the convention centre and the new Central Bank building are on the north side of the river – north to Sheriff Street Upper.

At the monthly meeting of Dublin City Council on Monday, councillors discussed a report that recommended winding up the SDZ – removing this extra layer of planning rules designed to drive and shape development – now that most of the area is either built out, or has planning permissions in place.

After the meeting, Fine Gael Councillor Ray McAdam who chairs the council’s planning committee, says he would favour the idea of winding up the SDZ  but he doesn’t expect that a majority of councillors would back the move.

Council Chief Executive Richard Shakespeare said at the meeting that the SDZ still stands. “That SDZ needs to be built out.”

The Docklands Oversight and Consultative Forum, a group that advises the council on policy in the area, also said in their report that the area needs more housing and a Garda station.

What did the SDZ achieve?

Most councillors welcomed the forum’s report, when they spoke at the full council meeting on Monday.

Members of the forum have included representatives from public bodies including Dublin Port Company, Waterways Ireland and CIE as well as business and community representatives and councillors.

“I wholeheartedly agree with the recommendations,” said Fine Gael Councillor Ray McAdam, who chairs the council’s planning committee. The SDZ should be wound up, he said.

The forum’s report highlights how the SDZ reached its goal for office spaces and attracting businesses, but not for homes.

According to the  council report the SDZ set out to deliver 366,000sqm of office space in Dublin’s docklands – and may have overshot that. Planning permissions are in place for 524,000sqm of office space in total, including what’s already been built.

Alan Robinson, the chief executive of the Docklands Business Forum, says that this doesn’t mean there are too many offices in the area. There is demand for office space, he says.

But the problem is that new homes weren’t built at the same rate as workplaces, he said, so now loads more homes are needed to catch up.

The SDZ target was for 2,600 homes. According to the council report, planning permission is in place for 97 percent of that.

But that target was low, demonstrating how the SDZ is outdated, says Robinson. It was set when there was an oversupply of homes nationally, rather than a shortage, he said.

Around 50,000 more people work in the Docklands than live there, says Robinson and some commute long distances – from as far away as Meath and Louth. “The failure to supply accommodation is absolutely destroying people’s lives.”

The forum’s report said: “There is an urgent need for an increase in social, affordable and private accommodation to create a more sustainable urban quarter.”

Winding it up?

Winding up the SDZ would likely please developer Johnny Ronan, whose Ronan Group Real Estate has lobbied for exactly that.

In 2019, the RGRE had lobbied Darragh O’Brien, the Fianna Fáil TD, “To discuss the proposed amendments to the North Lotts and Grand Canal Docks SDZ in relation to building heights.” The next year, O’Brien became Minister for Housing and Local Government.

Meanwhile, Ronan was pursuing plans to build a tower with more than 1,000 apartments reaching 45 storeys in the SDZ, on the north side of the river.

When the company behind the project applied to An Bord Pleanála for permission, its inspector found in a 2021 report that it contravened the rules of the SDZ.

“The proposed development materially contravenes the North Lotts & Grand Canal Dock SDZ Planning Scheme – 2014 in respect of height and density,” the report said, although it suggested there was a way around that.

However, when it came down to it, the board refused permission for scheme.

The “Board considered that it was precluded from granting permission for development, as under the Strategic Housing Development legislative provisions the Board does not have jurisdiction to materially contravene the North Lotts and Grand Canal Dock Planning Scheme”, its order said.

Ronan continued to lobby to get the SDZ removed. Tom Philips and Associates lobbied O’Brien on RGRE’s behalf earlier this year.

The issue? “Revocation of the North Lotts and Grand Canal Docks’ SDZ”. Intended results: “Argument that the planning scheme now serves as an impediment to development, and with few sites remaining should be revoked.”

On RGRE’s website, the Waterfront South Central project, as it is called, is listed as “in development”.

No councillor spoke against winding up the SDZ at the meeting. But, after, McAdam, the Fine Gael councillor, said that he thinks that particular recommendation wouldn’t be backed by councillors.

Two years ago during the negotiations for the new city development plan, McAdam said that he proposed that the SDZ should be ended but that his proposal was voted down.

What next?

The forum recommended that the council establish a third Docklands Oversight and Consultative Forum to drive the remaining goals.

Among the issues to tackle, “there is a persistent issue of communities not feeling the benefits of investment in the rest of Docklands”, says the report.

“The community down there still feel forgotten,” said independent Councillor Nial Ring, at a full council meeting on Monday night.

It also recommends the urgent delivery of long-promised transport links including the Dodder Bridge, a pedestrian bridge linking the North Wall to Sir John Rogerson’s Quay and the Luas line to Poolbeg.

The Docklands area needs its own Garda station too, says Robinson.

There are Garda stations nearby with responsibility for the Docklands area. But “we never see gardaí on the beat here”, says Robinson.

The council collects rates of around €85 million each year from businesses in the Docklands, but that is not reflected in spending on the public realm, says Robinson.

Councillors generally welcomed the forum’s recommendations, especially the need for more homes in the Docklands, and to ensure that the long-standing communities benefit more.

Sinn Féin Councillor Janice Boylan pointed to the need for more social housing, in particular, to be included in housing plans going forward.

Fine Gael Councillor Paddy McCartan said, “The case for a Garda station is imperative”, especially if the number of residents is set to increase.

But Green Party Councillor Donna Cooney said she wasn’t sure if a new Garda station was needed. The area would be safer at night if more people were living there and there were more cultural uses too, she said.

Shakespeare, the council chief executive, said that next council managers would bring presentations to the two relevant local area committees, for the Central Area and South East Area.  “This needs far greater debate and presentation of the detail behind the report.”

After that, the local councillors should get together for a workshop to decide on a way forward for the Docklands, he said.

Back to building

For Hargis, the employment skills programme will continue to grow as long as construction booms, he said.

The programme grew out of the SDZ and was originally funded by Dublin City Council and different departments, he says. But it is now funded long-term under the National Construction Training Centre, he says.

Next year, St Andrews Resource Centre plans to launch a new programme to target young people living in the Docklands area and support them to access apprenticeships, he says.

Taking up work in construction can change a person’s life because it is well-paid, he says, and he wouldn’t advise people to take a poorly paid job. “Work is about reward.”

Some people who are long-term unemployed just need a good opportunity, says Hargis. “They don’t need their arm twisted, they just need the right offer.”

[UPDATE: This article was updated at 11.31am on 6 December 2023 to add comments that councillors were unlikely to back the winding up of the SDZ and to add in details about the lobbying to wind it up.]