After first try goes wrong, council to re-run planning process for Mountjoy Square Park

Dublin City Council officials now plan to re-run the planning permission process for the revamp of Mountjoy Square Park, after councillors were pushed to pass the plans in a hurry in June, following incorrect advice about the legal timeline. 

The vision has been to reimagine the square, restoring it in line with its Georgian heritage, which most councillors support – but the plans are controversial because they involve removing sports facilities and a fenced-in toddler playground, which many locals say they need.

Councillors were told at the full council meeting on 8 June that if they didn’t support the plans there and then they could lose millions in funding to redo the park.

But they should have had six weeks to consider the chief executive’s report, according to legal timelines for the council’s internal planning permission process, known as part 8, in which council executives ask for the go-ahead from councillors. 

Last week, the council's chief executive, Richard Shakespeare, wrote to councillors to tell them that legal advice given at the meeting was wrong.  

This week, following a meeting, Eileen Quinlivan, assistant chief executive, wrote to councillors to say that the council will re-run the entire planning permission process from scratch. There might also be changes to the plan for the park this time around. 

“Consideration has also been given to the proposed amendments discussed,” wrote Quinlivan. “Given the conservation status of the Park, further examination of these amendments and how they might be accommodated appropriately in the design is required.”

Some councillors say they want changes made to the plans, while others say they don’t want locals to get their hopes up, as there won’t be major changes. 

One councillor says a fenced-off playground for young children will be included in the new park, while others now want that promise in writing. 

Loss of confidence in the process

At a meeting earlier this week, councillors expressed frustration to council managers at the inaccurate information provided to them around the timeline for the planning, say councillors who were there. 

“There was huge frustration and anger expressed by all councillors at the inaccurate information,” says Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty. “Confidence in the process was undermined.”

“The process was not satisfactory,” says Social Democrats Councillor Cat O’Driscoll. “We can’t stand over the process.” So she says it is best that the council re-runs the planning permission process, in full. 

There was unnecessary secrecy at times, as well as the inaccurate information about the timeline, says O’Driscoll. 

At one stage a council official told her she couldn’t see the public submissions to the consultation process, because of GDPR, she says. That is not true, and those submissions are usually available, she says. 

“The planner’s report is available on request,” said council landscape architect Gareth Toolan at the Central Area Committee, on Tuesday 26 May. “I’m not allowed to circulate that.” 

Then, at the full council meeting, the council's parks manager, Les Moore, said: "We are at the end of the planning process.” 

“If it's not approved tonight, then the Part 8 falls, and that puts the funding at risk,” Moore said. 

Green Party Councillor Janet Horner, says she was surprised to learn the funding is not at risk despite the substantial delay caused by re-running the process. “The timeline for the funding keeps moving.”

“I want to see this go ahead,” she says. “It should be a big priority project.”

What is the problem with the plans?

Most councillors support the plans to revamp Mountjoy Square, restoring it in line with its Georgian heritage.

But some residents and community groups are concerned that the new plan means a reduction in sports facilities and children’s playground space, in an area starved of both. 

“We use that park as our outdoor space; it is essential for us,” said Geraldine O’Driscoll, a manager with the Society of St Vincent de Paul, who runs an early-years service at Ozanam House on Mountjoy Square.

The new design won’t work for bringing groups of small children to the park, she says.

The new planned park includes some play equipment scattered along a play trail, but organised groups need a fenced of small playground, for supervision, said O’Driscoll. “The play trail won’t work for us."

Also, the park in Mountjoy Square currently has a tarmac multi-use games area.

The plan for the rejuvenated square includes a lawn, which can be used for kickabouts, events and other sporting activities – but no designated pitch for field sports. 

Jack O’Brien, a community co-ordinator with Bohemian Football Club, who runs sports activities in the park said in June that he doesn’t know if his programme will be able to go ahead after the redevelopment. 

“I’ve been given mixed messages,” said O’Brien. “There are extremely limited options for a part of the city with thousands of people who want to play football.”

Many of the children live in emergency accommodation and IPAS accommodation, he says, and often Bohs Play is their only after-school activity.

Will there be changes?

Moriarty, the Labour councillor, doesn’t represent the area but he chairs the council’s committee on community, sports and culture. 

He says the council didn’t take account of the concerns raised in most of the submissions to the public consultation process, on its plans for Mountjoy Square Park. 

He hopes that in the re-run of the consultation process those concerns will be incorporated, he says.  

In his own area, he and other local councillors tabled amendments to a Part 8 planning permission for the re-development of the Basin Street flats on behalf of the local community who wanted to retain a sports pitch, he says, that worked says Moriarty.

“If we want a fenced-off toddlers playground [in Mountjoy Square Park] we need to table an amendment,” says Moriarty. 

Councillors verbally expressing their views is meaningless, Moriarty says. They have the power to refuse the plans and to amend them, he says.

“Sometimes as councillors we have to make difficult decisions,” says Moriarty. “Ultimately it is our call.”

Horner, the Green Party councillor, says she wants to see the redevelopment of Mountjoy Square go ahead, and is open to the potential for changes. “We are likely to be able to make tweaks and changes through positive engagement."

She hopes that, going forward, the council’s senior managers will focus on getting the details of this project right, she says. “How to balance the interest of a city heritage park and also a community park."

Parks officials have given a verbal agreement that an enclosed toddler playground can be incorporated into the plans. “I think we can get that formalised,” says Horner. “That needs to be written into the plans.”

O’Driscoll, the Social Democrats councillor, says she doesn’t expect many changes to the plans, the next time around.

But she does think the plans include a fenced-off young children’s playground, which council officials have already agreed to verbally, she says. 

“My understanding is that it is in the plans,” says O’Driscoll. “I was told that we could do that at detailed design.”

Horner says the council should also consider clustering play equipment for older children in one area, even if that isn’t fenced off. 

The other major change that community representatives are pushing for is to retain a large basketball court in the park, says Moriarty. 

Horner says the existing basketball court is very well used. So she would be interested in working with the community to explore the possibility – although that is more complicated, she said. 

O’Driscoll says she supports the plans for Mountjoy Square Park, which councillors have been briefed on over years. “I really want the enhancements for the area.”

And she doesn’t want the local community to be misled about the purpose of re-doing the entire planning permission process, she says. 

There is already a small basketball court in the plans, allowing for three people to play three others at a time, she says.

The council should look for other spaces in the area to provide another full size basketball court, says O’Driscoll. “Its one park, it can’t do everything."