In the Irish Times is an article regarding plans to halt Dublin’s sprawl,. This will be achieved apparently through the building of tall buildings in strategic locations.
Isn’t it twenty years too late to stop the sprawl? Isn’t the greater concern about how to stop all the villages in Kildare, Wicklow, Louth and Westmeath from becoming part of some vast sprawlatropolis? I just hope that the “strategic locations” planned for these tall buildings are bang slap on top of planned metro routes and not several miles away.
I love sky scrapers and I’m all for more of them in Dublin, but lets not lie to ourselves. You can’t take back sprawl and congestion that is already in place. This is like trying to stick a bandaid on a two centimeter deep cut. It won’t heal the injury.
Note to Dublin City Council, I will happily take up residence in one of these new tall buildings provided the following happens:
1) I have a metro stop running under my building.
2) I have one car parking space per bedroom in my apartment. i.e. Two bedrooms, two spaces. I do not have to pay for these spaces. Additionally, there is one visitor space per aparment in the building. (You don’t want steet level congestion around these landmark buildings, so just build the damn underground car parks).
3) I can have an apartment that is at least 100 square meters with bathrooms with windows and an option to have an apartment over two floors rather than just one.
4) I have storage facilities somewhere in the building (preferably downstairs somewhere in a basement, near to my car parking spaces).
5) I have an outdoor area in my apartment, i.e. a nice terrace or balcony.
6) If my apartment in my high rise can’t have it’s own garden, then I can have a designated roof top garden area where I am free to grow some plants such as herbs for my kitchen. These designated garden areas are close to a tap with a hose attached for watering my plants.
7) The building comes complete with composting tubes to throw organic waste into that flow down through the building to some great organic composter.
8 ) I do not have to go down twenty flights to dispose of my rubbish, there will be service lifts and service areas on each floor for waste disposal.
9) The buildings come equipped with family friendly spaces, e.g. playgrounds for children, skate parks and loitering areas for teenagers, quiet gardens and spaces of contemplation for the more elderly (I will be approaching elderly by the time these are built).
10) The soundproofing is about ten times what is required by building regulations.
11) The prices are realistic. Otherwise, how can you attract people to live in them?
