The current Development Plan contains the following objective:
- Objective BALDOYLE 2
- Prepare a Masterplan for Baldoyle Industrial Estate and Kilbarrack Industrial Estate to guide and inform future development including improvements to signage and physical appearance, determine appropriate uses, provision for intensification of employment, and facilitate improvements to pedestrian access to and from Howth Junction Station and associated bus stops which can be implemented over the lifetime of the Plan.
This objective was inserted in the current Plan in response to a proposal of mine that the last Development Plan should apply a Rail Economic Node zoning, similar to the Metro Economic Corridor zoning. All involved agreed that the analysis was needed, and it was turned into an objective rather than being acted on as part of the last Development Plan process simply for workload reasons.
No progress has been made on the Masterplan referred to in this objective. There is no similar objective in the draft Plan.
Given the potential for intensification of employment and other uses benefitting from the public transport infrastructure at this location, this draft Plan should include the relevant new policies. I recommend that the area be given a Rail Economic Node zoning, with the following Objective and Vision:
- Objective
- Facilitate opportunities for high-density mixed-use employment generating activity and commercial development, and support the provision of an appropriate quantum of complementary residential development.
- Vision
- Provide for an area of compact, high intensity/density, employment generating activity with associated commercial and residential development which focuses on the adjacent railway station within a setting of exemplary urban design, public realm streets and places, which are permeable, secure and within a high-quality green landscape.
This zoning would have the same use class rules as the Metro Economic Corridor zoning and would be applied to the current GE zoned lands at Howth Junction and in Baldoyle and Kilbarrack Industrial Estates