It included designating the street as an architectural conservation area, widening footpaths, installing a cycleway, and helping businesses transform their shopfronts.
Councillors want to know what happened to a long-standing plan to transform Dorset Street.
In 2018, with council support, a group of Dorset Street-area residents and businesses held a pop-up public consultation on the future of the street.
In 2021, two of the organisers went before the council's Central Area Committee to present the detailed Dorset Street Together plan, drawn up by architects, to transform the street.
That included designating it as an architectural conservation area, widening footpaths, installing a cycleway, and supporting businesses to revamp their shopfronts, among other things.
Later that year, when they were putting together the city development plan for 2022 to 2028, several councillors put in motions suggesting that this blueprint for the city incorporate parts of this plan for to revamp Dorset Street.
At the time, it nearly sounded like the wheels of the giant machine that is the Dublin City Council were turning, and beginning to push forward these ideas for Dorset Street.
So when Green Party Councillor Janet Horner tabled a motion at Tuesday's Central Area Committee meeting, asking for a shopfront improvement scheme for Dorset Street, the conversation soon focused on why that – and the rest of the 2021 plan – hadn't already been done.
“Its like Groundhog Day sometimes in this chamber,” said Sinn Féin Councillor Janice Boylan at a meeting of the Central Area Committee on Tuesday 21 July. “There were promises made, there were plans developed, the community came together, and they had a fantastic plan.”
After the meeting, Tony Kelly, one of the organisers of Dorset Street Together, said that senior council officials had promised them that if they put the work in, together with the architects, the plan would be implemented.
But, despite support from local councillors, they have not been able to get the council to act. “If we were an affluent area it would be different,” he says.
At the meeting, council area manager Brendan Doggett said that the council had done a lot in Dorset Street. “A huge amount of work has been done and continues to be done."
Shopowners on Dorset Street can avail of shopfront improvement scheme grants, Doggett said. The council has installed planters, and painted over graffiti, and it's been involved in the re-opening of the Four Masters Park, which is attached to the Mater Hospital, he said.
Horner's motion said that the street's shopfronts could look better.
"There is currently a very haphazard approach to shop frontages which leaves the street looking tackier and less cohesive than it should,” it said. “Nobody is proactively keeping an eye on Dorset Street and ensuring that there is a cohesive vision for the street," said Horner at the meeting.
Her motion said the area committee was calling for a shopfront improvement scheme for the street.
The council's shopfront improvement scheme offers business owners a grant for half the costs of revamping their signage and the front of their building up to a value of €3,000.
At the moment, it is available in Ballymun, Finglas and the south inner-City, according to the council’s website.
The councillors on the committee agreed Horner's motion that Dorset Street shopowners should be allowed to apply for the grant too.
The council executive's written response to Horner’s motion said there's no budget for that, but that the council is working together with local businesses to enhance the appearance of the street.
“Initiatives have included improvements to shopfront shutters, support for Christmas lighting, improved management and maintenance of streetscape planters, and a range of public realm and environmental improvement measures,” it said.
If there's enough demand for the shopfront improvement scheme on Dorset Street, they'll try to allocate some money for that in next year's budget, it said.
Independent Councillor Christy Burke said at the meeting that council discussions about a shopfront improvement scheme for Dorset Street date back at least 20 years.
“The shopfronts are deteriorating,” he said. “Its time for the city council to act.”
Doggett, the area manager, said the council has offerred businesses the scheme. At one stage, council staff went door to door to offer it, but often businesses don’t have the money to pay for their half of the work.
“We have the funds," Doggett said, in apparent contradiction to the written answer to Horner. "Maria and I would always support any business that wants to improve their shopfront.”
Indeed, Kelly, one of the organisers of Dorset Street Together, said that in the past some local businesses on Dorset Street did get council grants to revamp shopfronts.
Laura Amariei, who has run the Laica cafe on Dorset Street Lower since 2018, says she was never offered a shopfront improvement grant. “I didn’t hear about that,” she says.
Amariei has been in contact with the council staff because around seven years ago she applied for seating outside the cafe. Staff came out and took pictures, she says, but she never received a response to her application.
Amariei says she didn’t know about the proposals to transform the area. No one from the council has approached her for her views, she says.
But she said she was really grateful to the council for removing graffiti from her shutters recently. “I was like wow,” she says. “Finally something for free in this country.”
Back in 2021, some other immigrant business owners on Dorset Street also said they were not consulted on the plan for the area.
The plan used pictures of takeaways on the street (the New Victoria Chinese and Thai takeaway, the Spice n Rice Indian takeaway, and the Welcome City Chinese) to illustrate what it says is a “lack of mixed-use”.
Speaking in 2021 John Jiang, who ran Do-son, a Chinese takeaway on Dorset Street Lower, said he hasn’t heard of the Dorset Street Together group or the consultation around the street’s future.
He said he thought it was good that there were lots of takeaways on the street. “I like that. It’s always better, you know.”
As well as the shopfront improvement scheme, there are lots of other ideas contained in the Dorset Street Together plan, which was drawn up by Kelliher Miller Architects in consultation with local residents and some of the street's businesses.
It envisioned changes to the road layout, tackling vacancy, increasing the number of apartments, greening the street, and making the shop fronts look swankier and more uniform.
Dorset Street has Georgian and Victorian heritage, as well as a rich history of literary connections and should become an architectural conservation area, says the plan.
That designation would mean that from then on, if an owner applied for planning permission to make changes to a building on the street, its new appearance would have to meet council guidelines.
There are already a slew of architectural conservation areas across the city, including ones for Grafton Street, Mountjoy Square, Fitzwilliam Square, Iveagh Gardens, and Marino Casino. But none of them cover Dorset Street.
At the moment, new businesses there can make changes, and install “tacky signage”, says Horner. “There is nothing there to restrict or guide how a new business should do their signage,” she says.
At the very least, the council should issue guidelines to new businesses about what type of signage would work with the historic nature of the street, she says.
Back in 2021, the then area manager, Karl Mitchell, said the next step was for the Dorset Street Together proposals to be discussed at other council committees, like the planning committee and the transport committee.
Dublin City Council has not yet responded to a query sent Wednesday as to whether those discussions at those committees took place.
However, various councillors raised the plans during the discussions about making the city development plan for 2022 to 2028.
Independent Councillor Cieran Perry and Labour Councillor Joe Costello asked that the Dorset Street Together plan be implemented.
The council's chief executive at the time, Owen Keegan, didn't promise to implement the plan, but he did say the council would consider creating a local environmental improvement plan (LEIP) for Dorset Street.
"The principles of the Dorset Street Together Plan can be examined for inclusion as part of this category of plan," says the response.
A list of 23 proposed LEIPs in the development plan includes Dorset Street. But the council hasn't gotten to it yet.
Fine Gael Councillor Ray McAdam asked for a targeted regeneration plan for Dorset Street.
"The potential role of the north east inner city, including Dorset Street and the north Georgian core in contributing to the regeneration of the city centre is acknowledged," says the executive's response.
Keegan said the council would look at the possibility of designating the north-east inner city as a Strategic Development Regeneration Area (SDRA). It hasn't got that designation, at least not yet.
Social Democrats Councillor Patricia Roe asked that Dorset Street be designated as an architectural conservation area.
"Areas proposed for ACAs, including Dorset Street, will be assessed using this methodology and priorities will be recommended according to clear architectural conservation and sustainable urban planning criteria," said the chief executive's response.
It's not included in an ACA, at least not yet.
Green Party Councillor Janet Horner asked that the street be improved, made greener and with safer cycling and walking space.
The response referred to page 76 in a report that contains a commitment to review local environmental plans and SDRAs, as well as a general statement about urban design and public realm.
"Planning policy should continue to promote the development of public realm / greening strategies for our urban centres and investment in the urban environment," it says.
"In order to achieve a network of active, attractive and safe streets and public spaces with a high quality public realm which allows ease of movement for the pedestrian, which are inviting and which include, as appropriate, seating."
Road layout changes
The Dorset Street Together plan included proposed changes to the road layout, removing the central median, and using the space freed up by that to widen the footpath, install cycle lanes as well as installing disabled parking bays and loading bays.
“A thoughtful re-design of the street, by removing the central median and using the gained space for greening and wider footpaths, will create a safer and healthier environment for the people who live here while also forcing travellers to use more sustainable modes of transport,” says the plan.
Amariei, of Leica cafe, said she hadn’t heard about the Dorset Street Together plan, but that the proposed changes to the road layout sounded excellent. “That would be brilliant,” she says.
“Widen footpaths and provide outdoor seating for local hospitality businesses,” is one of the actions in the plan, which is also relevant to Amariei’s application to put tables and chairs outside her cafe.
Tony Kelly, of Dorset Street Together, says businesses need to get deliveries, and the current road layout makes it difficult. “You can’t run a business without an ability to load,” he says.
Amariei said similar. She is on a corner, so her delivery drivers usually pull in around the corner, but she has seen trucks stop on Dorset Street and block traffic.
Horner, the Green Party councillor, said that a few years ago the council decided to plant trees along the central meridian on Dorset Street.
She objected because, under the Dorset Street Together plan, that central meridian was supposed to be removed and the trees planted instead on the newly widened footpaths on either side of the road.
“The central meridian turns the street into more of a dual carriageway,” she says. The vision is to create an urban village, by changing the street and improving the pedestrian ambience, says Horner.
But she says the council managers have not come on board with that plan.
“It is frustrating and disappointing,” says Horner. “It is a very limiting factor for the atmosphere of Dorset Street that it continues to have that feel of a dual carriageway rather than a community street.”
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