Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the Draft Development Plan. The Plan comes at a critical juncture in the development of Cork City’s and bold decisions must be taken. The Plan will go some way towards addressing underlying deficiencies in housing, dereliction and under-utilised sites, air quality, retail, flooding, sustainable transport, street and public space and quality open space provision. Cohesion and unity of purpose across all Council departments and Elected Members will be needed.
There is significant public support and mandate for change and the recent warm support for pedestrianisation, parklets and pop-up cycle provision should give the Council encouragement to continue the process and leave a lasting legacy.
The Plan has an impressive level of detail in many respects, not least in the City Docks and Tivoli Docks sections that will be required to do a lot of heavy lifting to meet Cork’s ambitious population targets. The use of international comparator cities is welcome and the evidence-base across the Core Strategy section is impressive. The work undertaken by the Planning Department staff to publicise the document, embrace innovative engagement initiatives and ‘front up’ at webinars and public events is highly commendable.
The Plan is clearly in alignment with the relevant hierarchy of Plans at national and regional level. The comments outlined below are intended to assist the finalisation of the draft and add detail as opposed to a critique of the document itself. Happy to discuss if required. Best of luck for the completion of the Development Plan process.