Who will sit on the advisory board set to shape the future of Dublin city centre?

Councillors have approved a list of the areas of expertise to be represented on an advisory board steering the "rejuvenation" of the Dublin city centre.

It is expected that the board, which for a time will advise a unit within the council, will spin off eventually to work with a new council-owned company – a  special purpose vehicle (SPV) – set up to oversee the development of the city centre.

People should be picked based on their backgrounds in finance, real estate, banking, “retail/new communities”, institutional investment, the law, and politics, they agreed.

The list was put forward in a report by Karl Mitchell, a council executive manager, at the monthly council meeting on 9 February.

“We’d like to have an advisory structure. We’d like members on it. We’d like experts in particular thematic areas,” said Mitchell to councillors, asking for their approval.

Overall, at the meeting, councillors responded with excitement about progress on the roadmap for city centre regeneration. 

A couple of councillors asked too, though, for more detail on governance and the representation on the bodies that are to drive and decide the regeneration plans.

“Sometimes, how you compose a board can determine what eventually happens,” said People Before Profit Councillor Conor Reddy. He asked how the board’s composition would break down in hard numbers.

Mitchell, the executive manager, said that the scrutiny of the roll-out of this major initiative was happening at a working group, the Urban Redevelopment Subgroup, so councillors should trust colleagues on that. 

They’re all working together on this, he said, in partnership. “The executive are not presenting for scrutiny,” he said.

Green Party Councillor Janet Horner said she appreciated that subgroups – council committees that meet out of public view – had been working on the project set-up. 

But as she isn’t a member of those groups, she did want the chance to scrutinise and ask questions about the governance structures, and how people are to be selected, she said. 

Fine Gael Lord Mayor Ray McAdam said he would organise a workshop for all councillors at Mansion House hopefully before the end of February. So councillors’ questions could be gone over then.

That workshop hasn’t happened yet though, said Horner.

McAdam hasn’t yet responded to an email sent on Tuesday asking when the promised briefing would happen, and whether media would be allowed. 

What’s up next

Over the last two and a half years, both the council through its City Coordination Office, and the central government through the Dublin City Taskforce, have proposed big moves to revitalise the city centre. 

The Department of the Taoiseach, council officials – and later councillors – decided that the best way to roll out projects in the city centre is not through the normal council channels but through a new council-owned company.

Council executives and councillors have been pressing forward fast with plans to set up a SPV to task with this. It isn’t in place yet, but they’re moving towards it.

For the time being, activities are to be rolled out by a project management unit that will sit within the council’s existing city co-ordination office, said Mitchell at the meeting.

Interviews for posts within that unit are underway, he said.

But executives also want to set up an interim advisory board with an independent chair to drive the work of the project management unit, said Mitchell.

The idea is that this board would transition and become part of the governing structure for the SPV, once that is set up.

In a report to the main council meeting, Mitchell outlined some of how those posts would be filled. He asked councillors to approve the process.

The Urban Redevelopment Subgroup – which is a group of councillors who gather under the council’s planning strategic policy committee – is to nominate any councillors who sit on the interim advisory board, with the full council approving those nominations.

The Urban Redevelopment Subgroup would also nominate an independent chairperson, who councillors are expected to endorse, it says.

And, the report also asked councillors to endorse the seven “thematic areas” from which to draw members for the interim advisory board.

A spokesperson for Dublin City Council hasn’t responded to queries sent on Thursday as to how the areas to be represented were chosen, and what the process for agreeing those members would be. 

But Cian Farrell, a Social Democrats councillor who chairs the planning committee and has driven some of the proposals for city centre regeneration, said “the idea of the board is that it would be reputable people across multiple disciplines, that wouldn’t only be related to property development or finance.”

They are not trying to create a for-profit developer with the SPV, said Farrell, who also sits on the Urban Redevelopment Subgroup. “We want to take a more holistic view of the city.”

Architects, and small independent businesses for example, would fall under the thematic areas of expertise in the report, he said. Some councillors are looking for representatives from approved housing bodies, he said.

At the moment, the council executive is putting forward a bunch of names, he said, and councillors on the subgroup are also.

 “Ultimately, how that will be decided will be a collaboration between the council and the executive,” he said.

The thematic areas might still change, said Farrell. “They’re not final. They’re a bit of an indication of where it might land.”

Reading through the “thematic areas” has prompted varied reactions from councillors, though.

“If you want to look at the people who wrecked the economy, it would seem a good example of that,” said Labour Party Councillor Dermot Lacey, recently on the phone.

Looking at this list, he thinks that existing communities should be explicitly represented as well as newer communities, he said. 

“It seems very business-focused,” said Horner, the Green Party councillor, on the phone. “It’s focused almost entirely on financial stakeholders in the city, rather than people.” 

There is the question as to whether it needs representation from artists, more community voices, and sporting voices, she said.

Officials may well argue against this on grounds of mission creep, she said, beyond the main focus on taking vacant and derelict properties and reviving those.

The board is different to the Dublin City Taskforce, Horner said, which councillors pressed to include trade union voices and artists’ voices.

Lacey didn’t push the issue of membership when the report came before the planning strategic policy committee recently, he said, as he is a member of the subgroup, and so he has had opportunities to raise questions there. 

“But the membership will be key,” he said. 

Who is to be on the advisory board is among the core to-be-answered questions, he says.

An independent chair?

Lacey said his major fight at the moment is to make sure there are more than two councillors on the board – as is currently proposed. 

And, “I have a problem with this notion of an independent chair”, he said.

Does the Oireachtas have independent chairs of its committees? he asked. No, they’re drawn from the elected representatives, he said.

Horner, the Green Party councillor, posed the same question at the monthly council meeting.

What was the logic of having an independent chair, rather than somebody from within the board’s structure? she asked.

And also, she still wanted to know what accountability the SPV will have to the council, given its such a crucial piece. 

Dublin City Council press office hasn’t responded to queries sent on Tuesday. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said: “Responsibility for the establishment of the SPV lies with Dublin City Council and, in doing so, the Council will need to adhere to the legislative requirements.”

David McRedmond, the CEO of An Post, who headed up the Dublin City Taskforce, said in an email on Tuesday that he doesn’t know if it is to be him or not.

Continuing onwards

At February’s monthly meeting, Mitchell’s report laid out a long list of the activities to be taken up by the project management unit – and later the SPV once it’s set up.

Those include a 10-year integrated area strategy for the city centre, to oversee major projects such as the “redevelopment of the GPO, reopening of the Ambassador Theatre, redevelopment of the Abbey Theatre”.

It also includes working with the council’s housing department and Department of Housing on “precinct improvement schemes” for inner-city flat complexes.

It includes developing and launching a “new incentive scheme” for vacant shops and properties in Middle Abbey Street, and North Frederick Street, and supporting the transformation of vacant sites around O’Connell Street. 

It includes turning Moore Street into a “re-energised market street”, and rolling out a special outdoor dining scheme for O’Connell Street.

The list continues: creating a cultural hub, developing a night market, tree planting, coming up with a plan for indoor day services for homeless people, and on.

These projects would in the past have been overseen by all councillors, with approaches discussed and voted on in public view at area committees and strategic policy committees.

But Mitchell, the council executive director, has said that setting up an SPV is a way to both move much faster and keep finance “off-balance sheet” – meaning any borrowings wouldn’t add to the state’s debt under EU fiscal rules.

Still, there are details about oversight that still need to be aired, said Horner, of the Green Party. 

“There’s still core issues about the role of the council and how much influence it has, and how the entity works,” she said.

The SPV is modelled on similar entities in Limerick, she says, but she does feel that councillors in Dublin need to better understand how that has played out.

“It’s one of the most significant projects in the city,” she says.