The Build

Gather round the fire for a very different kind of Christmas story. In this special episode, we hand the microphone over to a weary Santa Claus to narrate the true, exhausted saga of the "Ironborn" site in Dublin. It isn't a story about toys or elves. It's a farce about: Three Judicial Reviews.Five planning applications in nine years.Millions of Euro spent.And absolutely zero homes built.Join St. Nick as he walks you through exactly why the Irish planning system is on the Naughty List this ye...

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 ...

Housing shouldn't be a one-size-fits-all proposition. Yet in a decision that stands alone in Europe, Ireland banned an entire category of housing with a ministerial pen stroke. Why? Peter Horgan, co-founder of Lucas Capital and Grayling Properties, takes us inside the world of co-living - professionally managed, community-focused accommodations that serve as landing pads for young professionals relocating to Dublin. With 70% of residents being newcomers to the city, these developments fulfil...

Tom Phillips is a town planner and an art history buff. We sat down to discuss his somewhat unusual road to becoming a town planner, why so many planning applications get invalidated, what all the acronyms mean, why Children can lobby local councils, podiatry (yes, really!) and why Ireland had, until recently, more than 80 separate planning authorities. Some notes from the episode: TPA report on LRDs: https://acrobat.adobe.com/link/track?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:1e6b9094-8b42-3e71-a...

We speak to Brendan Slattery of McCann FitzGerald LLP about the new Planning & Development Act. Brendan is a partner at McCann in the Environmental and Planning law division. He does an incredible job of breaking down the new law and what its likely effects are. There are a lot of surprises, and not the good kind. I throughly enjoyed the chat with him and would urge anyone who needs advice on the subject to give him a call, as his knowledge on the subject is as in-depth as I've eve...