Reddy! Steady! Plan!

What if Ireland's cities were planned with the same vision and coherence as Barcelona, Copenhagen, or Helsinki? Tony Reddy, Director of Reddy Architecture and Urbanism, reveals how our planning system has trapped us in a development model where uncertainty reigns supreme and city-building happens in fragmented, piecemeal fashion.

Drawing from over four decades of architectural experience across Dublin, New York, and London, Reddy takes us through the stark differences between European urban planning and Ireland's discretionary system. While Helsinki's planners are designing street infrastructure for neighborhoods that don't yet exist—planning crossroads for 2030—Ireland's planners are drowning in 1,200-page text documents that few people ever read completely. This systemic failure has turned development into a high-stakes gamble where projects typically take 2-3 years just to secure planning permission before construction can even begin.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Rick.
I'm Tony Reddy.
I'm a director of ReddyArchitecture and Urbanism, an
international firm headquarteredin Dublin.
We're 270 people and we work inpretty well all building
sectors, but residential wouldbe a particular area of interest
.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Tony, thanks very much for coming on, and we've
wanted to do this for a longtime.
I remember I don't know was itlast year that I was in your
office, Maybe it was the yearbefore it's a bit more, I think
yeah.
Yeah, but I went to your officebecause you were at the
forefront at the time of talkingabout this compact growth
settlement.
So that was more than it wasmore than two years ago.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
No, it was introduced in January of 2024, but that
was after quite a significantcampaign.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
So you were helping spearhead that as part of With a
number of colleagues,particularly in the profession.
Yeah, okay, so we've hadarchitects on before.
We've had one.
Well, actually, technically,brian Morin's an architect, so
he counts.
So you're the third in thatcase, and John Dobbin was on

(01:05):
here before, but it's a whileago.
So for any new listeners, youmight just explain what it is
that you do, because you're youguys are not I want to build a
bungalow out and you know, timholey, I'm not coming to you for
that.
What is it?
The things that you're thatyou're focused on now?

Speaker 1 (01:23):
your career might have started with that, but the
reality, designing an, designingan individual house is quite a
personal journey and it takes alot of time.
So it's not something that'seasily delegated to juniors.
So over the years our practicehas grown.
We began to do groups ofhousing way back in 1982, small

(01:44):
town housing, infill schemes.
But as the years have gone onwe grew and we've been involved
in some very major regenerationprojects in Temple Bar, in
places like Patrick Street.
In the early 90s we grewsignificantly and our projects
grew significantly.

(02:04):
And then we had the crash in2008.
At that point in time we hadoffices around Europe.
I actually decided, ironically,that our skill sets probably
were best set in London, where Ihadn't practiced previously.
I practiced in New York but Iactually felt we had certain
particularly master planning andurban design skills and I was

(02:29):
involved in the Academy ofUrbanism in London.
So at a time when there wasn'tmuch happening, we set up a base
there and it took a while.
It took about a year, butgradually we began to get
appointments.
Year, but gradually we began toget appointments and I think
what had happened the professionin in britain was it becomes so

(02:50):
, uh, inflated that oneparticular client came to us
that he had four architects inthe job one to get planning
permission, because the peopleknew the planners.
Another to uh replan it to makeit commercial.
Another one then to do workingdrawings and finally an interior
designer.
So it was probably a good timeto come to that.

(03:10):
A lot of people had lost theirskills.
They were very specialists andthe whole industry had been
blown apart.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
God, that's crazy that it would have ended up that
way.
So it was very fortunate, butwe were very lucky.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
We were lucky to work with Ballymore early on, then
we won Barclay and now we workwith Galliard, mount Anvil,
barrett's, lots of UK very majorPLCs and that kept us alive
until what?
2015, when there was theslightest signal of growth

(03:50):
occurring back home.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Yeah, and now would half of your business be outside
Ireland.

Speaker 1 (03:58):
About 40%, about 40%, and we've made a decision to
make sure, even though now we'revery busy in Ireland, we've
actually made a decision to beinternational and actually it's
been very good for the firm,because we find we've people in
Portugal, in London, in otheroffices actually working on
projects in Dublin and viceversa, and so we're building up

(04:22):
a wider range of skills andyou're bringing in different
viewpoints.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
Yeah, and that's something that we're going to
ask you about in a little bit.
So you've been at this a longtime.
You mentioned it that youpracticed in New York.
How did you end up?
Did you always want to be anarchitect?
How did that happen?

Speaker 1 (04:39):
No one has asked me that for a long time, but I can
remember deciding at about theage of 15, I really liked it.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Oh, at that young okay.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Yeah, and I was very single-minded.
So I was very fortunate that Igot a job with Scott Talon
Walker the year I left schooland Neil Scott, who's a very
good friend of mine, gave me ajob and I worked for a while in
the office.
But he actually gave me thebest advice ever at that young
age.
He said look, you'll learn moreon a billing site.

(05:08):
So the RTE radio building wasbeing built and he was the
project architect and I was sentout there and the guys looked
at me and said you're going tobe useless on a billing site.
So they taught me how to surveyand I could do it easily.
So they kept me on even in myfirst year in university.
So I learned a lot aboutbuildings and I realized, and

(05:35):
even I went back the followingsummer.
So I learned a lot early in mycareer about building and that
led me to a very unusualsituation about building.
And that led me to a veryunusual situation when I did go
to America.
I had actually included somedrawings from the radio building
that I'd worked on and theaddress was Donnybrook, dublin 4
.
And I wrote to all these veryfamous architects in New York it

(05:57):
was kind of naive six monthsbefore I went there and
ironically it was after the oilcrisis they all offered me
interviews.
The people in San Franciscoactually said, wrote me lovely
letters back saying we loveIreland but do not come to San
Francisco.
It's disastrous for architects.
But New York was beginning tojust come out.
So I got all these interviews.

(06:18):
I mean, when I look back, inthe present era architects would
not get to talk to principalsin an architectural firm, but
they probably had time on theirhands.
And the reason I mentioned theDonnybrook drawing the architect
John Johanson who designed theAmerican Embassy.

(06:39):
He gave me an interview.
He had no work but he wasinterested in meeting someone
from Ireland because he told methe whole story of the American
Embassy Project.
But he said the name Donnybrookbrought back so many memories
that he just wanted to meetsomeone from Ireland.
But he took the list.
He asked me who I was beinginterviewed by and he went
through the list of six peopleand he actually gave me a rating

(07:02):
on each of them.
Like I got an interview withSkidmore, owings and Merrill,
with the principal, gordonBunshaft, and he had a tough guy
to work.
But he went through them all.
But eventually he came to PaulRudolph who had been the
professor at Yale.
He said Yale, he had been incollege, in Harvard with Rudolph
.
He said if Rudolph offered up,that's the one go for that and I

(07:27):
.
Then I went to Kevin Roach ofRoach, dinkloo and Irish
American and he had had a badexperience with Irish staff and
the time I came there they weredoing competition.
So he was quite grumpy.
He'd agreed to the interviewsome months before but he said

(07:47):
look, he gave me a lecture aboutIrish people expecting a job
when they came to his officeBecause he was Irish yeah.
And he said look, not only do Inot have a job, but I wanted to
see the office, because it was afamous office where they worked
in model form.
They had this fantasticworkshop and he said he can't
show you because we're in acompetition and there's an NDA.

(08:08):
We're not allowed anyone inhere.
It was for the American FederalReserve Bank.
They were doing the competitionat the time.
Did they win?
They did win, but the projectnever.
It was a very famous buildingdown in the tip of Manhattan,
but it never got built in theend.
It actually influenced,ironically, the tip of Manhattan
, but it never got built in theend.
But it actually influenced,ironically, sam Stevenson's

(08:29):
building in the central bank.
Okay, the idea was it floatedover all the other buildings,
okay.
So, anyway, what happened was Iwent to Rudolph, I got the job
and all I can say is it was agreat experience.
And, ironically, then Rudolphandroach and another very famous
actor who was also on the list,philip Johnson, the three of

(08:53):
them.
One day Rudolf came and said tosome of the senior people in the
office it was quite a smalloffice at the time, it was only
25 people said he was going toMoMA, the Museum of Modern Art
and he said they're talkingabout a book.
So he was being invited byArthur Drexler, the chairman of
the MoMA.
So in the afternoon he cameback to the office and all of

(09:14):
the senior people were sayinghow was it, mr Rudolph, how was
it?
And he said it was amazing.
It was like they're going to dothis book on American
architecture.
We've been chosen as one of thearchitects and they're going to
do this book on Americanarchitecture.
We've been chosen as one of thearchitects.
And he said I met someinteresting people there Philip
Johnson there but I'd never metKevin Roach before.
And I told him I had one of hisfellow countrymen there and he
turned around to me and said andhe said tell Tony that I was

(09:37):
asking for him and if ever hewants to drop into the office,
drop in.
So it was quite a change.
So I stayed in Rulos.
But I contacted Kevin somemonths later and he was very
chatty and said come into theoffice anytime you want.

(09:58):
I'm sorry you couldn't see themodel shop, so come up.
So I went up and he told me hislife story the second time
around.
He said where I was living inNew York was where he had lived
and he told me he was down andout, having worked on the UN
building.
But anyway, he said I'm gladyou didn't get the job on me.
But he said now I'm prepared togive you a job You've made your

(10:18):
way in.
So that's a long answer to yourinitial question Did you take
the job?

Speaker 2 (10:23):
I did take the job, okay.
So how long did you stay in NewYork then?

Speaker 1 (10:26):
overall, they were two separate terms.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
I went back to university and then I came back.
Oh, so these were summer, yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:32):
Okay, all right.
Wow, new York, a very differentplace then.

Speaker 1 (10:36):
It was a very dangerous place then yeah, there
was a murder in Wow okay, yeah.
And people you'd walk along thestreet.
It was near Harlem.
I lived on the Upper West Side.
People would walk close to thebuilding line because there were
a lot of instances of peoplebeing killed with things being

(10:57):
just dropped on them.
Wow, yeah, gosh, it was.
It was.
Yeah, it's a totally differentarea.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Now, yeah, harlem has become like gentrified and it's
starting to be a milliondollars for an apartment there
now.
It wasn't then, no doubt.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
And then I came back and worked with a Canadian
company in Ireland, then withSam Stevenson.
Okay, oh, so you worked withSam Stevenson.
Oh, I did For four years.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
I was lucky enough to meet him when I was a kid,
because my I don't know dad knewhim through somebody and I was
actually at his funeral for somereason.
I can't exactly remember whythat was, but that was up at the
back of Manchuria Square,wasn't it?

Speaker 1 (11:36):
yes, it was that church I'm trying to think of
the name I can't remember justoff George George.
I'm trying to think of the nameI can't remember.
Really beautiful church Justoff George Street.
Just off George Street.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, so that's a while
ago now too, of course, yeah,yeah, 2006 or 2007.
Okay, so then you came backhere.
Did you set up on your own?

Speaker 1 (11:55):
No, no, I worked with two firms Murray, a Canadian
Irish firm, and then with SamStevenson.
And then I joined a collegefriend of mine whose father had
died, his father-in-law had died, and we practiced under the
name Hope Cuff for about 18months, but then, because of a
lot of legal complications, weset up a new company.

(12:18):
Okay, it was called FitzgeraldReady and that existed for some
time.
Okay.
So you've been self-employedfor a long time, since 1981.
1981.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
43 years.
Wow 44 years.
Yeah, it's a long time.
A lot of mouths to feed duringthat time over the years.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Yeah, it's been quite a well like.
I think any architecturalcareer it's up and down, like in
the nature of it's like thehouse building yeah, it's
cyclical right.
Yeah, it is um any favoriteprojects over the years that
come to mind oh, I think oneproject that I particularly
enjoyed doing I know it kind ofrepresented also stepping up was
temple bar.
West end temple bar project hadbeen very successful, but the

(13:00):
the west end was where theresidential sector was to be
yeah, yeah.
And we were appointed, there hadbeen a number of firms engaged
to try and make it work and theysimply hadn't managed to make
it be viable.
So we were brought in to bothdo a master plan and prove that
it was viable before they wouldthen appoint other architects.

(13:23):
So that was really we had donesome mastering.
But that took us to anotherlevel.
We looked at a lot of it, gaveus an opportunity to really go
and study in detail contemporaryEuropean models.
Then we would have gone toGermany, particularly to
Barcelona, where the late DavidMackey, who was with MBM, gave

(13:48):
us a lot of help withmethodology on how to take that
ambition.
It hadn't been done in Irelandbefore of doing a master plan,
for I think there were fivearchitectural firms.
So we kind of designed a schemethat worked.
We set part of it at height etcetera.
But then, knowing that thatbrief worked, our brief was then

(14:13):
divided up and a number offirms were commissioned for
pieces of it and then two firmswere executive architects for
the entire and it was verysuccessful.
It won a lot of internationalawards, yeah, particularly for
sustainability.
It uses a lot of excess energyfrom the civic offices and it's

(14:35):
a great pity, we don't do thatmore.

Speaker 2 (14:38):
And it's a pity too that actually Tempobar nowadays
is just associated with drinkingand excess.
Bar nowadays is just associatedwith drinking and excess, and
it's an article in the newspaperthe other day about people who
live there saying that theydon't feel like it's very
livable anymore.
But actually, what was therebefore?
Of course, people don'tremember what that replaced,

(14:58):
which was pretty grim.
Yeah well, there was some therewere.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
I think it was part of the plan for CIE to have a
massive bus station and knockthe whole area down.
But ironically the short termleases that.
There were a lot of veryinteresting bohemian businesses
there.
But the odd thing about TempleBar West End I just saw recently
they're going to pedestrianisedParliament Street.
The residents of West End.
It's much quieter.

(15:23):
You know it has a lot of activeshops but the partying doesn't
go on down there.
No, it doesn't really crossthat one street right.

Speaker 2 (15:30):
No, it doesn't cross.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
But the residents I noticed were expressing concern
that the effect of it might moveover.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
But I suppose, in answer to your question, that
was like we've had many reallyinteresting projects going on.
I'm not going to.
I thought that was.
I had hoped it would be more ofa, it would show the way for
more, yeah, but it hasn'thappened.
But it did affect our work andit helped us win work in other

(16:01):
areas, like particularly down inDocklands.
We would have done a very majorscheme in Mare Square and that
in turn led us to winning manyprojects abroad, particularly in
London, yeah, and so just,Brian, it brings us neatly to
really what we're here to talkabout.

Speaker 2 (16:19):
So you got very good at master planning.
We're not, as a country, verygood at master planning, not
just with housing, but withanything we come up with,
sometimes lofty, verybroad-based plans.
Following through on them hasbeen a bit of a challenge for us
.
I'm not going to go on a biglecture about housing.
We all, anyone who listens tothis, anyone who gets out of

(16:42):
their own house in the morning,will know the situation that
we're in.
One of the complaints that'sfrequently aired is about the
planning system, about how slowit is, how fraught with risk it
is.
Out of this and start havingvery detailed, wide scale plans

(17:13):
put in place that dictatesdictates, maybe the wrong word
that sets out what the capacityof an area is, what building
height should be, what the mixof things should be somewhat
beyond zoning.
Is that right?

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Very much so I'd actually, rather than use the
word, I would say we should havea vision of what our future
city or neighborhoods would be,and I often say in advocating
this, britain and Ireland areoutliers in Europe in this
regard.
The Romans, the Greeks, thesignories of the Italian

(17:51):
Renaissance towns, our own WhiteStreets, commissioners,
haussmann in Paris, cerda inBarcelona, all of those cities,
all of those places were plannedand it's an irony that we've
ended up again.
I mentioned previously thatIreland and Britain were

(18:12):
regarded in the early part ofthe 20th century as leaders in
the new profession of townplanning.
But after the war, ironically,the Labour government in 1947
brought in what was called a NewTowns Act and that was under
some threat.
Towards the end of their term,towards the 1950s, they

(18:32):
anticipated losing power to theTories and the moderate Tories.
Moderate Labourites actuallyhad a pact and the pact was this
that the New Towns legislationwould not be repealed, which was
a real threat from the rightwing of the Tory party.
But the quid pro quo would bethere'd be a discretionary

(18:53):
planning system, which meanteffectively a laissez-faire
planning system, and ironically,in 50s and 60s Britain that
worked and we copied it in 60sIreland, because Ireland didn't
really have a desire forplanning.
De Valera famously said that theluxury of planning was
something rural Ireland couldn'tafford.

(19:15):
But what has happened?
As society has got more complexand as the appeal system has
grown and we've moved on tojudicial review, we've simply
got to a point where any projectof any significance, and
sometimes even of minorsignificance, is a battleground
and that does not lead to goodcity planning.

(19:36):
What we really have, and reallyI would argue that our planning
system has actually ended up inbeing a manifesto for sprawl,
that our planners as the Britishplanners, they write policy.
The average citizen mightrealize.
Very few Irish or Britishplanners actually physically

(19:58):
design and plan and indeed therewill be.
An element of the planningprofession believes that there's
no need to do that.
But I think there is a growingrecognition that that kind of
laissez-faire attitude, taken toextremes, leads to a city that
is basically determined by itsroad structure and not much else

(20:23):
, and the idea of placemakingand scale and height and
relationships between buildingis lost.

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Yeah, which is really a pity, because if you do look
at those other European cities,that's not how that went right.
In Barcelona, they cleared awaylarge swathes of the way it was
to make it what it is now Oneof the, I think, nicest cities
in Europe to live in, as long asyou can afford it and

(20:51):
affordability is a different, adifferent story.
But, yeah, that is somethingthat's poorly understood.
We we hear planning department,and what that actually means is
controlling plans that are madeby other people right on the
right side.
So developers like me will hirearchitects like you and we'll
say here, tony, here's thispiece, this field or this site

(21:13):
we want.
What can we do here?
And you've got to come up witha plan Correct.
We've got to spend a lot of time, a lot of money coming up with
this, to go into city officialswho listen I'm not criticizing
them but they may have adifferent opinion as to what
should go there, but we don'tknow that until we've spent all
the money and time, and so thissort of back and forth ensues.

(21:37):
That's a very good description.
It is a back and forth.
It's a back and forth.
It's like tennis and it it'sboth informal and formal.
When I started um work in this,when I got into development, we
used to think as a rule ofthumb to take, you know, six to
nine months to get planningpermission.

(21:58):
The assumption now is two tothree years, and getting worse
actually.

Speaker 1 (22:03):
And we're following British footsteps.
Britain now, it can be three tofour years.
Yeah, there's kind of anacceptance of this.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah, we were talking about that before we started
recording that it people arethat's just how it is right.
So you build it into your model.
But that's no way to be,because the world changes
quicker than that.
And see if you, if you're goingto do things in a three or four
year, planning time on yourconstruction then takes two to
three years.
No matter what it is thatyou're building, that's the

(22:30):
better part of a decade, and thewhole world might be completely
different by the time you getfrom one end of that process to
another.
So that's Ireland and the UK.
That's how we do things.
Talk to me about Europe.
What's the difference?

Speaker 1 (22:43):
Well, the big difference is that they do plan
and it's pretty well all overEurope, whether it's Spain,
barcelona, madrid or Lisbon,whether it's Helsinki,
copenhagen, stockholm, oslo, allof those cities.
The city planning departmentconsists of urbanists,

(23:05):
architects, planners, engineers,collectively working in teams
to plan the city, and Imentioned before we began that
I'm in my role as chair of theAcademy of Urbanism.
We were in Copenhagen andAarhus the second city of
Denmark a few years ago and wewere presented with the city
plan and the various parties.

(23:28):
The political parties were allat the meeting and there were 13
of them from the ultra right tothe ultra left, and we were
amazed that they all consideredthat plan, the model, their city
, and they answered us in thatway.
They said they were unified inthe vision of the city prepared

(23:49):
by their planners and theirdebate was how they ran the city
.
Yeah, but there was a unifiedvision about the physical form
of the city and that didn't meanthat someone couldn't have an
idea that a taller building hereor a different type of building
there, that had to go to analternative system, but it could
happen.
Yeah, that had to go to analternative system, but it could

(24:11):
happen.
But there was a consistency forthe average house builder, the
average developer or perhaps theaverage citizen about what they
had to do and there wasabsolute certainty.
And that's consistent acrossEurope.
And I think what has happened inBritain and Ireland is I think
we're now seeing it's ironicthat we have a Planning and
Development Act of 900 pages.

(24:32):
Britain looks like the Labourgovernment look like they're
talking about abandoning theirentire planning system.
It's that flawed and I'm notproposing we start again with
our planning system because Idon't think anyone could endure
another bout.
But there are elements of thenew Planning and Development Act

(24:52):
which I have hope that, whilethey didn't take on board
everything we said, the onething they did do is they took
on board the notion of urbandevelopment zones and that may,
if it's taken advantage of andenacted more widely, that could
be subsidiary to the developmentplan and give a vision for the
neighborhoods.
I just make a point ondevelopment plans the irony of

(25:17):
the city we're in.
In Dublin we've a 1200 pagedevelopment plan.
It's entirely in text.
There's a couple of maps in itbut I can truly say I almost
never read it except the pagesthat relate to a site I'm doing.
I almost never read it, exceptthe pages that relate to a site
I'm doing.
One can go online now toCopenhagen, to Stockholm, to
Oslo, to Rotterdam, to Madrid,to Barcelona, and you can and

(25:49):
most of them would have it inEnglish.
You can actually go to arelatively short document 100
pages that will give you a veryclear idea, graphic idea, of
what is planned for that city,where the new neighborhoods are
going to be, where the newtransportation is going to be,
and it's an informative process.
Ours is actually complex beyondbelief and there is no attempt
made to make it user-friendly.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Like you, say you wouldn't have read it.
How would you have read theentire thing?
And there is no attempt made tomake it user-friendly.
Like you say you wouldn't haveread it.
How would you have read theentire thing?
For me, when I go on to thedevelopment plan, similarly,
we're looking at some projectand I've been at this a while.
It's not that straightforwardto read through it.
No, it's referencing anothermap sheet and then you have to
go find that, and then it's thistiny little colored thing, the

(26:33):
gis, which is meant to have allthe development plans online for
every county, hasn't, um?
So what hope does the average?
yeah what hope do they have?
They're not going to go andread through looking at sd
policy, sd1, sd4, and I'll referto map sheet 7b.
But what?

Speaker 1 (26:51):
will happen is if they're involved in appeal, and
this is what's happening now SD1, SD4, and I'll refer to map
sheet 7B.
But what will happen is ifthey're involved in appeal, and
this is what's happening nowbecause the system is so
unsatisfactory.
Lawyers end up reading thisminute and finding consistencies
in the plan that are completelyirreconcilable, and that has
led to this growth of ourjudicial review cases, yeah, and

(27:11):
that's turned into an industrywhich we've talked about a lot
here.

Speaker 2 (27:17):
So UDZs they are an element of the new Planning and
Development Act and they aresimilar to the old strategic
development zones.

Speaker 1 (27:28):
They are similar, but the legislation has improved it
somewhat in that it's moreflexible.
The other thing is, which isdifferent from the SDZs, is that
it deals not just with planning, it deals with infrastructure.
Okay, so my hope would be andthis is a hope there's provision

(27:49):
as well for other forms ofcommunication.
It's not mandatory, but I wouldbe recommending to the
government and to localauthorities that they should
take that third option in thelegislation, which is that they
use other means of communication, and specifically I mean CGI,
three-dimensional planning.
Three-dimensional planningBecause I think a lot of, I

(28:11):
think I've certainly beeninvolved in very major urban
development projects in ourvarious Irish cities, north and
south, and in the UK and inEurope, and I think one can
engage much better withneighbours when one sees the
totality of the project and it'sno longer just flat drawings.
You're seeing the actual thing?

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, because flat drawings are hard to read.
Even for us they're hard toread.
For somebody that's not used tothem, they're impossible to
read.
The technology has existed fora long time.
Every single thing should bedone in 3D.

Speaker 1 (28:41):
Yeah, we had advocated in the RSC group that
it'd be mandatory.
Yeah, my hope would be thatthrough the UDZs which will be
for large neighbourhoods,initially for large scale areas
of the city, but my hope wouldbe you'd get down to maybe units
of four or five hundred wouldbe planned that way, yeah, and

(29:03):
would be available then online.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
So how this is going to work.
Somebody's got to designate anarea.

Speaker 1 (29:09):
Well, the legislation has been provided for
pleasantly and it wasn't on theagenda early in the year.
The government has announcedthe minister has actually asked
the local authorities tonominate their sites for UDZs.
So that was a letter sent outtwo or three weeks ago.
He's given them four months tocome back with those schemes and

(29:30):
that's quite a radical change.
There's not been too muchpublicity about it, but I'm ever
the optimist about these things.
The process is that ultimatelythe government will determine
the sites or the neighbourhoodsthat will be UDZs Interesting
enough as a Okay, so that's animportant point.

Speaker 2 (29:47):
So the local authorities are asked to
nominate them, but actually it'sgoing to be the minister that
picks them.

Speaker 1 (29:51):
The minister will ultimately pick them, is my
understanding and that willinclude, by the way, ida lands
that the IDA campuses arecovered by this Right so it's
not just housing.
It's not just housing, but thenext phase is having designated
the UDZs.
The local authority thenprepares, or may prepare, a

(30:13):
master plan.
That legislation is not fullyclear yet and there are
guidelines to come out.
My sincere hope for ourcountry's urban future would be
that all of those are planned in3D master plans.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Yeah, it would be great to do that, and I guess
one of the things that'sprobably going to come up is the
local authorities are not goingto have the in-house skill sets
to do some of this work.
You were talking about being inHelsinki recently, and Helsinki

(30:50):
is one of these places that iseffectively planned within UDZ.
They're maybe not called an UDZ, but that's how they do it, and
you were telling me that theplanning department over there
were explaining to you that theywere under a lot of pressure
because they were planning for2030.
Correct?

Speaker 1 (31:08):
But it was both in Helsinki and Copenhagen, which
are both very similar in size toDublin, and the first thing
they told us was they had 50 UDZequivalent plans on the go at
any one time.
So they were constantly planningareas, but I was familiar.
I've been there many times, butI hadn't spent a day with them.

(31:30):
Myself and a colleague from theOur Cities group and another
colleague from our practice werethere.
We spent a day with them, andwhat was fascinating was they
were working on a piece of citythat didn't yet exist.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
It was sand, nothing was there, so this is in
Helsinki, helsinki, okay, butthe same story applies to Plot.

Speaker 1 (31:50):
Yeah, okay, yeah, they were planning a cross
section of a street, thebuildings they'd already worked
out the height they wanted forthe buildings around us.
But they were actually planningthe crossover of services on
that junction for the year 2030.
And it was quite embarrassingwhen they turned to us and said
you know, we're under realpressure, we're going to have to
outsource to meet our programfor 2030.

(32:10):
And they turned to us and saidyou know, we're under real
pressure, we're going to have tooutsource to meet our program
for 2030.
And they said by the way, whatyear are you on?
And we looked at each other andone of my colleagues said about
1900.
Yeah, God, wow.

Speaker 2 (32:23):
So they're going to that level of detail.
They plan cross, services,everything.
So then, when that plan isadopted, presumably by a vote by
local government, I'm not quite.

Speaker 1 (32:33):
it's definitely adopted by a similar system to
our own and, as I said to you,there doesn't seem to be the
political division about it.
It's like the city planners haveplanned it.
And one thing that's veryapparent in this the reality for
and you'll be familiar as well,rick most sites have
unpredictable problems yes, thereality of the city as the kind

(32:55):
of honest arbiter making adecision, you resolve all these
issues, whether to keep aprotected structure, whether to,
you know, to make sure that thetransportation works, that the
drainage works, of resolving allthose issues, to come up with a
coherent vision, and I keepusing that word coherent vision.
The great cities of Europe,both past and present, including

(33:18):
the heart of our city in Dublin, were planned in that way and
that's why they're successful.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
Yeah, because the other idea that you do it on a
field by field or building bybuilding basis.
There can be no coherence.
I mean, how could there, couldthere be right, unless the one
person was doing all of it?
Um, but that's fascinating.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
So they're planning now for 2030 and then and
planning, like the commitment todelivery yeah is is is very
different.
It's sad commentary that onedoesn't have that sense of
commitment to program.
No, In our country or inBritain I'd say Our problem is

(33:58):
we follow the British systemslavishly.
My message is we need to breakaway from it more.

Speaker 2 (34:03):
Yeah, because it's not working there at all Okay,
so they're going to plan that.
So then Mr Builder comes alongafter that plan has been adopted
, or Mrs Builder, as it may be,or they builder and the piece of
land that they're going to lookat to buy.
They know what height thebuilding can be, how many square
feet it can be, what kind ofuses can go into it, so they're
able to very accurately thenmake their bid for the land or

(34:27):
come up with their constructionbudget.
And if they say, oh, actually,actually, you know, I wonder if
we could get another floor ontothat building because we wanted
to have this much of aresidential and we wanted to
have a restaurant or somethingon the roof, they can still go
to the council and say they haveto go back to a process.
Yeah, Similar to our basicplanning process.

Speaker 1 (34:48):
An interesting story occurs to me as we talk about
this, about human nature.
Many years ago we had a Germanclient who owned land in
Sandiford.
At the time Sandiford wasn'twhat was essentially an
industrial estate, but we wereasked to do an appraisal for
this German client.
They had architects andplanners in Munich and we, as

(35:10):
most architects do and as you'llbe familiar with Rick we showed
three options low, medium andhigh, because that's the way one
typically does an appraisal.
They were quite irritated.
In correspondence they wanted astraight answer.
They said in Germany we couldtell precisely what the plot
ratio would be, precisely whatthe height will be.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
And we said we've no idea until we go talk to the
planner.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
So they insisted then to come to see the planner and
it was quite a fascinatingmeeting.
They gave the same lecture tothe planner and he looked at our
appraisal and said well, Iagree with Tony's appraisal here
.
It can be this and this andthis.
They wanted to know therationale for the high and he
said well, I agree with Tony'sappraisal here.
It can be this and this andthis.
They wanted to know therationale for the high and he

(35:55):
said well, it's very simple.
If you were to stay there theywere kind of in a business that
would be very desirable to keepthere who's in manufacturing and
research?
He said he'd give them thehighest possible plot ratio.
It was something like at thetime, I think four.
And they were astounded.

(36:16):
And a funny thing happenedduring the meeting that the
phone rang and the planner hadto go out, but while he was out
the junior planner was with him.
The Germans were complainingabout the lack of precision in
the Irish planning system andthe junior planner said yes, in
Sandford the plan is that thereis no plan.
So the Germans were horrifiedby this.

(36:36):
But anyway, he came back intothe room and they said so, if we
do this, we will get thehighest amount.
And this was the interestingthing about the human condition.
These are the good Germanslaw-abiding precision, et cetera
.
They queried them and themanaging director was German,

(36:56):
was with us.
We left the meeting then withthat confirmation that if they
stayed, they would get themaximum plot ratio.
We went and had a coffeeafterwards and the managing
director, the German manager,said well, that was a very
satisfactory meeting.
And the three Germans who hadcome from Munich it was quite
amazing.
They looked at each other andthey said it was satisfactory to

(37:17):
an extent, but given that therewas no plan, why did you stop
at your maximum figure, at four,in other words?
the human condition is, theywere like any other developer in
a free-for-all.
That's the human condition.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
And I think you've actually summed it up really
well there.
That's what is wrong with ourentire industry is that we don't
know.
So we go in to buy a piece ofland and we say, oh, we think we
could get here.
So now it's about what?
Can we get beyond that?
Correct, because that's wherethe profit lies.
Yeah, I mean, and that's justcasino stuff and that's what's

(37:54):
been going wrong.
It's getting harder and harderto figure it out and it puts
higher values on land because ofthat.

Speaker 1 (38:01):
Yeah, it does Potential yeah.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
Which may not be real , Because that's it.
Land is valued on potential andif we knew what the basis of it
was, it wouldn't be.
It would just be value for whatit is rent or X.
So that's how much squarefootage you can build and that's
the end of it.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
I think there was a time when I was a young
architect where there was asense that, you know, we were
beginning to build more densely,so there was a sense of an
uplift.
But the human condition is thatwe have a kind of a free for
all now and, as I said, the termdiscretionary planning means
that you have notional plans butthey're almost there to be

(38:38):
broken.
And I think what's interestingis many experienced developers
now would prefer a greaterdegree of certainty and I think
local communities woulddefinitely.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah, it's better for everybody.
Ok, so we'll make on certainthings we'll make less money,
but actually we'll have asustainable business, Because
right now, it's famine or feast,but you won't hopefully have
paid too much for it to beginwith.
But this is what I mean.
We either end up winning thelottery or we end up losing our
shirts.
Those are the two.
It's fairly binary, anddevelopment is a black box.

(39:09):
It's a complete mystery andpeople think that we know, or
people want to hold themselvesout there as knowing.
Reality is nobody knows rightwhat the planning outcome is
going to be, Because theplanners don't know themselves.
How could anyone else know?
So you're an optimistic guy.
You think the UDZs are going tobe a big help.
You were showing me some figuresearlier about how quickly

(39:30):
potentially this could lead to.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
I'm no economist and I know and it's almost, the
debate is over for the next fiveyears, government has set a
course to get 300,000 housesbuilt by 2030.
Many commentators, manyeconomists, are saying the
number is too low.
I tend to believe them.
Many commentators, manyeconomists are saying the number
is too low.
I tend to believe them.

(39:53):
I've been making the caserecently that the UDZs are our
one hope of at least solving onepart of our housing problem,
and that is that we have plansfor it.
But the reality is we needeconomists are saying the figure
is between 1.2, 1.5 millionhomes by 2040.
It's a shocking figure.
That's only 15 years away.
It's only 15 years away, butthat's what we need.

(40:14):
So what that's telling us is weneed we definitely need a
different system to help usdeliver the adoption of UDZs and
doing them the way I'msuggesting of maybe where's the
Irish Cities Group?
The RAI and other bodies are nowsaying we should be doing begin
with 20 and move up to gettingto the European norm of about 50

(40:35):
on the go.
We need 50 clumberses on the goat present to meet our targets
Across the country and I knowfrom talking to senior civil
servants they're shocked at that, the only way I see us being
able to do that.
We won't do it if we're to thenotion of expanding our existing
planning departments with thetypes of planners we have at

(40:56):
present, who are good people butthey're essentially development
controllers we're recommendingand I know some of my colleagues
in our profession here disagree.
The scale of the challenge isso great we need to.
There are a very small numberof firms in this country and in
Britain.
It's not enough to meet theneeds of Ireland.
We need to hire a group ofmajor master planners from

(41:18):
Ireland, britain and Europe tohelp initially the local
authorities do their plans, butthen also to mentor the younger
people in those planningdepartments to be the future
planners of our cities for therest of the 21st century,
because we this is a crisis hasto be gotten over, you know, as
a crisis, any crisis does.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
But we're all thinking about 2030 and 2040,
but what about 2100,?
You know 2100?
What about you know all of thethings that happened in Paris
and Barcelona, all these places?
This was all done a very, verylong time ago and maybe at the
time that it was being done, itprobably wasn't necessary.
But actually having that vision, to say, having the vision we

(42:00):
need to build a culture ofplanning here at the ground.

Speaker 1 (42:05):
Well, you're absolutely right.
We hadn't, really I hadn'tthought about this, but the
thought occurs to me now thatbig picture planning doesn't
occur in Ireland Like.
I'll give you some examples.
I've written recently aboutthis in the Irish Cities book.
We know that Dublin Port hasadvised that in 2040 it's
reached its capacity.

(42:25):
Yeah, but it is the engine forthe Irish economy.
We should be planning now tomove Dublin Port to wherever.
It doesn't really matter whereit goes.
We should be making thatdecision and that decision is
probably right now a governmentdecision.
There is no process for theIrish Port and Docks Company to
do it.
We're looking in Cork.

(42:46):
We work with the Port of Cork.
They own lots of land so theycan move land around.
Dublin Port and Docks Companydoesn't have that facility and
this is not anti-government port, it's allowing them to plan a
future.
But that would give one couldhave an eco community there that
just extend the Lewis into it.

(43:07):
No one would need a car.
You could actually plan, likeCopenhagen or like Helsinki or
like Stockholm, a new piece ofcity that accommodates 100,
150,000 people.
It would be an incredible placeto live.
I could go on.
There are many other bigpicture moves that one could

(43:27):
make when you got into that highlevel of thinking.
I give it merely as an example,but our planning system at
present does not into that highlevel of thinking.
I give it merely as an example,but our planning system at
present does not facilitate thatkind of lateral thinking big
picture thinking no, and that isgoing to be a huge, a huge.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Well, actually we're paying the price for it now.
Really, let's be honest, that'swhy we're here.
You know, people will come upwith all sorts of excuses or the
financial crash, or it'sbecause we, you know, didn't do,
I had underinvestment.
But actually it's because wedidn't have any plan.
And as late as 10 years ago, wewere being told that there were
ghost estates and there was noone ever going to live in them.

(44:00):
There was these thousands ofhouses.
They were never needed.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
Well, there was a truth to that in that we did
again because of bad planning.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
We built estates in places that were in the wrong
place, and I'm not trying toexcuse where those places were
built, but I'm really pointingout that an idea that there
would ever be too many housesfor a population that was
growing was, you know, severelylacking, and that was the common
wisdom up until relativelyrecently, and so we need to move
on from this way of thinking.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
We very definitely need to move on, yeah.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Normally I ask people about the magic wand.
I don't know if you've had a,so this is where you get to.
You get a magic wand, you getto change one thing and it's
like there's no one can questionyou.
Okay, I haven't thought aboutthis.

Speaker 1 (44:49):
But I give the straight answer I would give If
I could do one thing now for ourcountry, it would actually be
to change our planning system,get rid of discretionary
planning and actually have asystem that followed the
methodologies of the Romans, theGreeks, and plan neighborhoods,
plan cities properly, and forIreland to become a nation of

(45:10):
cities.
I mean, it was interesting thatSean Mulrhyan recently put
forward the notion of a new cityand a new loan and we should
have that ability to have thatsort of vision.

Speaker 2 (45:21):
Okay, so you would upend the whole thing.
I know it's probably notfeasible, but pull it right back
, get rid of it altogether andsay, okay, from now on we're
going to have plans put in placefor every single urban centre
and that plan is going to be 15years and it's going to be
renewed every five years.
It's going on a rolling basisforever and our planners would
be planning, yeah, and thenyou'd have development control

(45:44):
officers and then focus oncreating beautiful places,
beautiful streets, beautifulsquares, beautiful parks.
Yeah, if you've read a bookrecently that you like, that you
care to recommend.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, interesting enough, I happened to reread two
books recently Jane Jacobs, theLife and Death of Great
American Cities.
I hadn't read it for about 30years.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
Okay.
And it's a great read, I meanit's like if you're passionate
about, so your bookshelf isheavily focused on.

Speaker 1 (46:13):
My wife points out to me my bookshelf is too heavily
focused on cities.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
The life and death of the American city.
Yeah, the life and death of thegreat American city.
The great American city.
I was going to put that on mylist because I recently read a
book called the Wilderness MostImmense and it was about the
Louisiana purchase agreement.
It's absolutely fascinatingBecause when I had grown up with
the Louisiana purchase I wouldhave thought it's like the state

(46:39):
of Louisiana, but in fact itwas half the continental United
States that was purchased forthe equivalent of about three
cents an acre when France neededmoney, and it's an absolutely
brilliant book.
It's out of print but you canget secondhand copies some
places.
I must get that, yeah.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
I'll get you a copy of it, tony because it's a wild
story.
I was in New Orleans earlierthis year actually, yeah, and
it's a part of America that kindof is forgotten now very much,
yeah, and there's a city,actually, because American
cities are notorious, but NewOrleans is planned, very planned
, yeah, the centre, the old partof the city is very planned and

(47:16):
very beautiful.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
That's a fantastic place.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Some of the suburbs are quite planned, which I
didn't know until this year.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
I found it amazing being around there, you hear
some people speaking Frenchstill in New Orleans, which is a
wild with a very heavy Southernaccent, but still French it is.
So well, listen, tony, I reallyappreciate that.
You've taught me a lot in todayjust about about UDZs, and I
think a reason to be hopefulthat the government will take

(47:44):
this opportunity, because it isprobably a generational chance
that exists now to get rid ofwhat people often criticize as
developer-led planning,something that developers are
actually no real interest indoing but are forced into doing
because of the nature of theplanning system and, like you
say, to make, make beautifulplaces that people can live.
And you know you start doingthat.
You start reducing cost.

(48:05):
Everyone's talking about cost.
A lot of the cost is timewasted and uncertainty and that
cost going away.
That's going to make thingscheaper, drive greater
competition for everybody.
So I think it's a verybeneficial thing and I want to
thank you and your colleaguesfor the work that you've been
doing and lobbying for thesechanges to be made, because
they're overwhelmingly positivefor the industry.

(48:26):
They're overwhelmingly positivefor the citizens and people
often don't get thanked forthese things.
So I just want to say thank you, because if it wasn't for
people like you, we would beabsolutely and utterly screwed.
So now we have a little glimmerof hope and something that I'm
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (48:43):
I think I share this view with my colleagues.
I think most architects arepositive and we're positive for
our city and we're forevertrying to make it better.
Yeah, you definitely are.
It's a privilege to have theopportunities I've had.
Well, that's great, okay,thanks.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Thanks.
The Build is produced by CarrieFernandez and me, Rick Larkin.
Music is by Cass.