Proposed Material Amendments to the Clonburris SDZ Planning Scheme 2019

Dear Sir/Madam,

The Lockhouse Way Residents’ Association represents residents of Lockhouse Way, Seven Mills, Clonburris, and is registered with the South Dublin County Public Participation Network (SDCPPN-1433). We welcome the opportunity to make this submission on the Proposed Material Amendment to the Clonburris SDZ Planning Scheme 2019.

We support the sustainable-mobility and compact-growth objectives of the Clonburris SDZ, and we do not oppose the amendment package as a whole; a number of the proposed changes are sensible and welcome. However, several of the amendments, individually and cumulatively, affect the established community at Seven Mills, and we ask that they be modified or conditioned as set out below. Each point relates specifically to the proposed amendments and their supporting documentation.

Amendments 3 and 4 propose to downgrade the planned north-south vehicular link connecting the northern and southern parts of the SDZ to pedestrian and cycle use only, and to reclassify the associated Link Streets as Local Streets. The Council’s own Bridge Removal Assessment Modelling Report (Systra, 2025) finds that, in the AM peak, trips will reroute via the Fonthill Road North junction with Seven Mills, and identifies congestion effects at nearby junctions. This directly affects our residents, who will experience additional traffic at the junction serving Seven Mills and reduced vehicular permeability across the SDZ. That effect is of particular concern because it arises alongside the scheme’s already-reduced residential parking provision, at a point when the public transport intended to justify low car dependency is still far from being delivered. We ask that:

•     the residential-amenity and junction-capacity impacts at the Fonthill Road North / Seven Mills junction be fully assessed, and any necessary mitigation secured, before the reclassification takes effect;

•     the removal of vehicular connectivity be justified against actually delivered - not merely planned - public-transport; and

•     the amendment be accompanied by a clear phasing or trigger, so that severance of the vehicular link is aligned with the provision of realistic road and/or public transport alternatives for existing residents.

We object to any reduction, constraint or “future-proofing” of car-parking provision that is predicated on public transport which does not yet exist and is not scheduled to exist for many years. The entire premise of the SDZ’s low-parking, transport-led model is that residents will have realistic public-transport alternatives to the private car. For Seven Mills, that premise does not hold today, and will not hold for well over a decade:

•     Seven Mills has no bus service whatsoever. Residents have no scheduled public-transport option serving the neighbourhood at present.

•     The rail service on which the SDZ’s transport strategy depends - DART+ South West, serving the Kildare line through the Clonburris/Fonthill and Kishoge stations - has, per the National Development Plan Review 2025 Sectoral Investment Plan for Transport (December 2025), had its completion deferred to post-2035.

The public-transport infrastructure that is relied upon to justify restricted parking is therefore, on the Government’s own current programme, more than a decade away, and there is no bus provision to bridge the interim. In these circumstances, reducing or constraining parking on the basis of assumed transport availability is not sound planning: it would leave residents of Seven Mills with neither adequate parking nor a viable public-transport alternative for the foreseeable future. Provision cannot be calibrated to services that are, at best, aspirational.

We therefore ask that amendments 8 to 11 be modified so that:

•     any reduction in, or re-allocation of, car-parking provision (including for EV charging and “future-proofing”) is expressly conditional on the demonstrable, delivered availability of public transport serving the relevant area, and takes effect only once such services are operational;

•     accessible (disabled) parking is expressly required, protected and located conveniently close to dwellings, and is never displaced by EV or future-proofing provision, consistent with the accessibility priorities of the National Sustainable Mobility Policy;

•     Mobility Management Plans are required to be evidence-based and monitored against actual, operational public transport, and may not rely on planned or assumed services; and

•     no parking, EV or mobility cost arising from these amendments is transferred to residents or to owners’ management companies.

Amendment 18 proposes to reallocate unused residential units from southern to northern development areas. We ask the Council to clarify whether this increases residential density - and therefore parking and traffic demand - in or adjacent to the Seven Mills area, and to confirm that any such reallocation will be accompanied by a commensurate assessment of parking and transport capacity for the receiving areas and neighbouring established communities. The same request applies to any operation of the housing-delivery roll-over provision under amendment 15.

While we understand the intention to apply national compact-settlement guidance, we ask that the removal of minimum internal space standards for houses be accompanied by retained design-quality and amenity safeguards, so that residential amenity in future phases adjacent to existing homes is not diminished.

Taken together, these amendments lean further into a transport-led, low-parking model. We support that model in principle. But, as set out at point 2, Seven Mills currently has no bus service, and DART+ South West is now deferred to post-2035. We therefore ask that the Planning Scheme, as amended, make clear that the delivery of walking, cycling and — critically — public-transport infrastructure is demonstrably sequenced ahead of, or in step with, the population it is intended to serve, rather than assumed in advance of it.

We would be grateful if this submission were acknowledged and reflected in the Chief Executive’s Report to An Coimisiún Pleanála. We are available to engage further with the Planning Authority on any of the matters raised above.

Yours faithfully,

Ricardo Santos

Chairperson, Lockhouse Way Residents’ Association