A report on a conference organised by the excellent Cultivate Centre.

Report
by

Cllr
David Healy

8th
May 2006

EU Energy Commissioner speaks out on Ireland’s Approach to Energy in Buildings & Commends Fingal

(Link to Construct Ireland website)

Following recent discussions, I became increasingly conscious that the problem at this location is in large part one of urban design, and therefore I submitted two motions to try to get work done on the design.  The Area Committee has agreed to have design work done on this open space.  I believe we can come up with a design which will meet all of the concerns from various residents of the estates and of the wider Baldoyle area.

I
submitted two motions to try to get work done on the design, which came up at the Area Committee meeting on 20th April. 

"That in the light of problems of anti-social behaviour at the open space between Castlerosse and Admiral Park that the next Area Committee invite the Garda Siochána to send a representative to discuss the issue and that the Manager bring forward a report on the security measures taken at the pumping station and come forward with proposals in relation to the design and lighting and  maintenance of the open space with a view to coming up with a strategy to reduce the incidents of anti-social behaviour at this location."

"That given that the open space bounded by Castlerosse, Admiral Park, Grange Road and the Millennium Park was never designed as an open space and amounts to little more than left over bits of land after the housing was inserted and the stream culverted, the Council draw up a brief to engage a landscape architect, urban designer or similar expert to advise on possible design solutions."

The Parks Department in reponse was confident that it has the necessary expertise in house and there is no need to get outside expertise.  Following discussion, it was agreed by the Committee that design work would be done to come up with redesigns for the open space to improve the open space and minimise the potential for nuisance in response to two alternative briefs:

a) providing access from Grange Road to the new park and pitches, and blocking access from Castlerosse or Admiral Park, and
b) providing access from Grange Road to the new park and pitches, and between Castlerosse and Admiral Park and to the new park and pitches

The third option of maintaining the status quo would require an alteration to the planning permission. It has already been decided, at the request of a group of residents, to put this option on public display.  At February’s meeting, the Area Committee agred to put a proposal to vary the planning permission on public display.  In response the Manager stated that he would have to get the views of the Council’s Law Agent.  The following response was received:

>>>>
When phoning or calling please ask for Mary Crealey ext. 5500

Our Ref:  “MC” Law

John Tierney
c.c. Michael Lynch
c.c. Gerry Fitzgerald

5th April 2006

Re:  Castlerosse/Admiral Park public open space, Baldoyle.

I refer to my Advice of the 1st December last in relation to the above matter and to the recent request for a further opinion on the question of initiating the part XI procedure in relation to the matter.  When I gave the opinion on the 1st December last I had not been furnished with the decision of An Bord Pleanala incorporating a condition in relation to the two open spaces, but my firm instructions were that it was the same as the condition in the original planning permission.  I have now obtained a copy of this decision and condition no. 8 of same states that “the developer shall pay a sum of money to Fingal County Council as a contribution towards the expenditure that is proposed to be incurred by the Council in respect of the provision of piping the main water drainage channel adjacent to the site, the removal of temporary fencing and the completion and integration of open space areas facilitating the proposed development.  The amount of the contribution and the arrangements for payment shall be as agreed between the developer and the Council or in default of agreement shall be determined by An Bord Pleanala.
Payment of this contribution is subject to the provisions of Section 26(2)(h) of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act 1963 generally and in particular, the specified period for the purposes of paragraph (h) shall be the period of 10 years from the date of this order.
Reason:  It is considered reasonable that the developer should contribute towards the expenditure proposed to be incurred by the Council in respect of works facilitating the proposed development”. 

Section 26(2)(h) of the 1963 Act states that conditions may be imposed “requiring contribution (either in one sum or by instalments) towards any expenditure (including expenditure on the acquisition of land) that is proposed to be incurred by any local authority in respect of works (including the provision of open spaces) facilitating the proposed development, subject to stipulations providing for-

(i)    where the proposed works are, within a specified period, not commenced the return of the contribution or the instalments thereof paid during that period (as may be appropriate),

(ii)    where the proposed works are, within the said period, carried out in part only or in such manner as to facilitate the proposed development to a lesser extent, the return of a proportionate part of the contribution or the instalments thereof paid during that period (as may be appropriate), and

(iii)    payment of interest on the contribution or any instalments thereof that have been paid (as may be appropriate) so long as and in so far as it is or they are retained unexpended by the local authority.”

Therefore the condition imposed by An Bord Pleanala does not make it mandatory on the Council to integrate the open spaces in question but under the provisions of Section 26(2)(h) the return of some of the contribution paid towards the work by the developer together with interest may have to be made to the developer if the works are not carried out within a 10 year period from the date of the decision of An Bord Pleanala of 3rd March 1997.

My instructions in relation to this matter are that there is considerable disagreement among the residents in Castlerosse/Admiral Park in relation to the integration of the open spaces. 

Due to the nature of condition no. 8 in the decision of An Bord Pleanala in relation to the open spaces, it would now be possible for the residents of Castlerosse/Admiral Park, having legally constituted themselves, and with the consent of Fingal County Council to make a planning application in relation to the open spaces.

____________
Mary Crealey
Law Agent

/an
<<<<

I have to say I am surprised by this advice.  The question which was asked was whether the planning permission could be changed by a part XI procedure.  The answer given seems to refer to changing the planning permission by the residents applying for new permission. The question I thought the legal advice was to answer doesn’t seem to be addressed at all!  Nor have we been given an indication of when, if at all, the proposal is to go on public display.

We have been successful today in getting energy standards included in a local area plan in Balbriggan.  The plan will involve approximately 1,500 apartments and houses to the south of the centre of Balbriggan.  The energy standard is slightly different to that iincluded in previous Local Area Plans.  Those plans set a (space and water) heating demand limit of 50 kWh/m².  This plan requires that the buildings have a heating energy demand 60% better than the current Building regulations.  This works out at effectively the same limit, but the Architects’ Department prefers to have it expressed as a % improvement on the Building Regulations to avoid any confusion over measuring methods.

24th April 2005                                                      News Release

Green Party delivers sustainable development in Balbriggan Local Area Plan

Green Party Councillors, Joe Corr, David Healy and Robbie Kelly have welcomed the decision to incorporate higher energy efficiency in the housing units to be constructed on the lands of the Balbriggan South East Local Area Plan.

The motion tabled by the Green Party Councillors was specifically to have the energy efficiency of the housing units increased to a standard which was 60% higher than current Building Regulations and 20% higher than Sustainable Energy Ireland’s “House of Tomorrow” standard.

During the meeting Councillor Corr referred to the study carried out by the Department of Environmental Studies in UCD, identifying the issue of “fuel poverty” experienced in particular by social housing tenants. He outlined the fact that the study identified tenants of social housing units as more likely to fall into rent arrears as the need to pay for Oil, Coal, Gas and Electricity for home heating and water heating understandably takes precedence over other bills as the requirement to keep homes heated during the winter months becomes essential to the quality of life for families in this situation.

Speaking after the meeting, Cllr Corr said, “We must address the issues relating to the massive increase in the cost of fossil fuels that is being experienced by families throughout the Fingal area. We have now been successful in four Local Area Plans in Fingal (Cappagh, Ballymun, Balbriggan North West and Balbriggan South East) and I commend the councillors from other political parties who have had enough vision to support this Green Party initiative on energy efficiency and reduce the hardship experienced by families due to the increased price in fossil fuels.”

He added, “As a councillor for the Balbriggan area, I am proud to say that Fingal County Council is showing leadership in how sustainable development can be delivered during what can only be described as a ferocious construction boom.

Councillor David Healy said, “I urge all councillors to follow the example set by Fingal and consider the ramifications for residents due to the massive increase in oil to 74 dollars per barrel, this is a huge burden to homes all over the country with no sign of abating in the near future. This is one of the essential steps to reduce our contribution to climate change”

Ends.

For further information:

Cllr Joe Corr        087 681 5811
Cllr David Healy    087 617 8852

Notes to the Editor:
The UCD study can be accessed at http://www.ucd.ie/gpep/gpepinfo/publications/workingpapers/02-05.pdf

Fingal County Council last night unanimously agreed to a Green Party motion for providing allotments throughout the county in proximity to residential communities.  The Green motions resulted from the recent closing of waiting lists for allotment due to high demand;  277 people were on the waiting lists when they were closed earlier this year, and the waiting period to get an allotment is over 2 years.  The Council also resolved that the waiting list be reopened.

Speaking in relation to the motion, Councillor David Healy (Howth) pointed out that the waiting list had grown from nil in 1999 to 277 in 2006, reflecting a strong demand in Dublin for allotments.  “This reflects a growing interest among the public in fresh healthy food, and the fact that many newer houses have small gardens or no gardens.”  

Cllr. Healy also emphasised that green belt land such as between Baldoyle and Portmarnock should incorporate allotments on a permanent basis, as part of the green space and parkland provision for adjacent urban areas.  These permanent allotments would be in addition to the more traditional temporary allotments on land which the Council is holding in reserve for future use.

Councillors from all parties enthusiastically supported the proposal, suggesting sites in their local areas, and Council management responded positively, promising to identify areas currently let as conacre for temporary allotments and to look at parkland for the provision of permanent allotments.  A representative of the South Dublin Allotments Association will be asked to speak to a forthcoming Strategic Policy Committee of the Council.

The report starts with my overall impressions and thoughts.  It then
lists various documentation I have brought back and think might be of
interest, and then contains a list of websites and finally my notes
from the various speakers.

1.    Climate change is the greatest collective challenge humanity has
ever faced.  Therefore dealing with it is everyone’s responsibility.
This means action at the individual level, in workplaces and
businesses, schools, churches, organisations and all of civil society,
in local government, national government and at international level. 
None of us can push it off as someone else’s job

The speakers from cities around the world were very clear and
convincing on the major role urban local authorities have in addressing
climate change.

2.    Ireland is in an excellent position by virtue of it’s massive
natural wind resource.  (It is in a disastrous position of fossil fuel
dependence by virtue of policy, infrastructure and recent and planned
investments in fossil fuel dependency.) Other countries with much less
abundant natural renewable energy are much more advanced than we are.

3.    Local authorities could usefully get involved in the energy
business, especially renewable energy.  It is striking that in some
countries local authorities supply electricity, in many countries they
supply heating.  Conversely, in some of those places local authorities
do not supply water, which we (rightly) think of as a public service. 
Now that electricity is no longer a monopoly, Fingal needs to think
seriously about using its own wind turbines, positioned as centrepieces
in its parks and other land, to serve its own electricity demand and
also sell on to citizens.

4.    Real-time electricity meters give people direct feedback on how
much electricity they are using.  This leads to a 15% reduction in
electricity use.  Maybe we should be requiring such meters in all new
planning permissions. Other ideas
•    Fingal to do travel plan for Council offices?
•    Need to ensure training of renewable energy installers – contact Fingal Enterprise Board, FAS, Fingal Development Board
•    Sustainable Fingal Plan
•    Incorporate Demolition Protocol (see www.envirocentre.co.uk) into relevant planning permissions
 

Most useful/relevant documents            

1. Delegate Manual 2nd International Solar Cities Congress    A4 book       abstracts
2. A collection of case studies demonstrating exemplar ‘sustainable community’ projects across Europe    ring-bound A4    15    clear overview of case studies, very useful
3. Membership in ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability    leaflet and application form    3    membership prospectus and application form
4. Carbon Emission Reduction Planning    course leaflet    1    one-day course 25th May, Oxford
5. Solar Low Energy Housing in Europe    course leaflet    1    technical course August 11-19th, Freiburg
6. A future with Zero CO2 emissions    conference leaflet    1    May, Stockholm, a European conference for local governments on climate protection and promotion of renewable energy
7. Renewable Energy in Maritime Island Climates    conference leaflet    1    26-28 April, Dublin
8. 40% house a specialist brief    A4 booklet    16    report on research to identify the mechanisms for reducing CO2 emissions from houses by 60% by 2050, also addressing fuel poverty and security of supply and competitiveness full report at www.40percent.org.uk
9. Carbon emission reduction model    leaflet    1    note on Oxford’s GIS model of building CO2 emissions
10. Solar Region Freiburg    booklet    11    about Freiburg, its solar policies, map etc.

Useful/relevant documents about waste/materials rather than energy            

1. nada less is more    magazine    60    free colour magazine produced by Oxfordshire County Council aimed at citizens, looking at how consumer habits affect the environment
2. Commercial waste reduction pack    information pack        information pack produced by Oxfordshire County Council on waste reduction for companies           

Other documents            

1. Tokyo renewable energy strategy    A4 page    1    target of 20% renewable energy by 2020, currenly 2.7%
2. PV and commercial buildings    A4 page    1    about pv installation company in wales
3. Refocus    magazine    64    Magazine of International solar energy society
4. Transitioning to a Renewable Energy Future    A4 booklet    56    http://whitepaper.ises.org
5. Itch    A5 magazine     36    magazine about sustainability
6. eco-architecture 2006    conference leaflet    1    June, England
7. the sustainable city 2006    conference leaflet    1    July, Estonia
8. Intersolar 2006    conference leaflet    1    june, Freiburg
9. Emergency power systems and solar energy    leaflet    1    Florida
10. Renewable Energy World March-April 2006    magazine        renewables news magazine
11. Global Renewable Energy Markets and Policies: Context for Solar Cities    powerpoint printout        showing striking growth of renewables
12. Beyond Green    prospectus    4    information on sustainable development consultancy
13. The sustainable growth of Harlow    ring-bound    44    proposal for new sustainable urban area, by developer

                        
Websites
www.iclei.org/europe/ccp
www.iclei-europe.org/index.php?id=1723
www.fatspaniel.com
www.oberlin.edu/ajlc
www.zedfactory.com
www.zedstandards.com
www.stormsmith.nl (why nuclear won’t help)
www.ren21.net
www.martinot.info
www.ises.org
www.c4s.info
www.regenatec.com

Notes from Speakers
These are most relevant by comparison with the abstracts and may not mean very much to someone who wasn’t there.            

Crispin Tickell
See Science, 24th March 2006 re sea levels

Rajendra Pachauri, Chair of IPCC
Overview of climate change.

Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor of London
Quite inspiring.

London has established a Climate Change Agency, which is setting up an Energy Services Company (ESCO) with EDF
Procurement by local government has a major impact on the market.
London has supplementary planning guidance imposing higher standards than the UK draft building code (they hope the central government will catch up)

CO2 emissions in the congestion charging zone  are down by 19%.  They are planning to extend the zone westwards and then to introduce a scheme for all of London graduated by time and zone.

Decentralised generation is part of the future for electricity, and they are working towards this.  Woking is their example which has led the way.

Recent study Powering London into the 21st century. (web reference)

H Ming
Dezhou, China, solar city, planning for solar cities conf 2010, will have solar-powered massive buildings and solar-powered light rail by then

Herbert Girardet

Burning 1 million years of fossil fuels a year.
Circular or linear metabolism

John Byrne

Dukes “Burning buried sunshine”; our society as future-eaters.
Own ref: John Byrne et al. Climate Change Perspectives
Germany 100,000 roofs => 300 MW of pv in 5 years
Japan 100,000 roofs => 400 MW

60% annual growth in pv production

ICLEI Cities for Climate Protection
World Mayors Co… on Climate Change

J Smales

Ref: John Reader, 2003, Cities

KB Janda

Solar citizens rather than solar consumers, incorporating education into solar measures.

Feedback on resource consumption affects behaviour.  Real-time metering data displayed to houseowners reduces consumption by 15%

www.fatspaniel.com

viridian design competition

www.oberlin.edu/ajlc – realtime data on website of academic green building

electrosave realtime meter

G Killip

40% house – analysis of entire UK housing stock to consider changes needed to reduce CO2 emissions by 60%.  See abstract and booklet.

Derek Taylor
Building augmented wind power.
Altechnica

Bill Dunster
ZedFactory

Consider the limited stocks of national RE resource.

BedZed capital cost was £1500/m2
Current cost for such house £1100/m2
Standard house cost is £800/m2

If 5000 such houses built a year then capital cost would be the same as any other house

www.zedfactory.com
www.zedstandards.com
www.stormsmith.nl (why nuclear won’t help)

B Gething

National Trust office
Pv panels payback period 11 years including grants and renewable obligations certificates.

G Battle

Case studies of green buildings  An engineer, very good overview of green buildings

Stephen Strong

Solar technologies in buildings.  Overview of significant work around the world.  US mission to UN in Geneva has pv solar covering, solar a/c
In Netherlands a new town entirely solar
pv equipped fire station in Netherlands which makes more energy than it uses.

R Smits

Vice-mayor, The Hague,

Duindorp, Scheveningen
Seawater heat pump in harbour for refurbished housing area

K Kappel

Copenhagen
Cost of grid-connected/delivered pv electricity is 4x standard cost.  Sold as units

Sue Roaf
Lib Dem Councillor in Oxford

Overview of local authority CO2 targets in UK and internationally

Newcastle 2025 target carbon neutral

Oxford Climate Change Action Plan 70 pages, on website
Target set
Actions
1.    awareness
a.    awareness target – 25% to know about climate change and mitigation within 5 years
b.    unit for information
c.    grants for solar
2.    GIS – Geographic Information System mapping of all buildings using mostly already existing data to estimate CO2 emissions per building
3.    promote conservation
…
Energy Audits being done by post-grad students.

Particular focus on fuel poverty
Climate Change Action Plan officer
Energy Efficiency officer

Going to introduce Zero CO2 BRE building standard for planning permissions in 2010.

Donald Aitken

American Institute of Architects policy adopted December 2005 – zero use of fossil fuels for buildings by 2035

Eric Martinot
Global pv production is currently 150MW/month, annual growth rate of production of pv is 60%

250,000 employed in China in solar hot water manufacturing sales and installation
2006 RE status report
www.ren21.net
www.martinot.info

favourable or preferential feed-in tariffs are the  most popular RE suppot mechanism

Susan Ageton

Boulder, Colorado, pv installation in cooperation with private company with locked in long-term price.  Given expected electricity price changes, they anticipate savings over the 25 year period.  In any event they have certainty as to cost.

Josep Puig

Barcelona Solar Ordinance.

Since 1st August 2000, requiring the use of solar water heating in Barcelona.  Copied at local level all over Spain and now at national level also

Barcelona 1470kWh/m2year solar energy

1995 700m2 installed
2000 1,600m2 installed
2005 31,000m2 installed

Leah McBey

Dunedin New Zealand,

Resource Management (Climate Change) Amendment Act
 
Town has also adopted zero waste to landfill target.

EU Solar Cities
International Solar Energy Society (www.ises.org)

Rajat Gupta

Climate Change Action Plan for Oxford

Thomas Dresel

Freiburg
City of 200,000
6.15 MW of photovoltaics installed
10,000m2 of solar thermal
Vauban low energy standards implemented by contract with purchaser of land
Builders reluctant initially, now prices are higher in this area, builders have learnt a lesson.

Now another zone in  Rieselfeld.  Here the tram line has been built before the houses.

Solar tour of Freiburg available.

Miao Zhonghua
Dezhou china

Paul Evans
Low carbon at the community scale
www.sibart.org

Bo01 Malmo
100% RE
2MW wind turbie
120m2 pv
1400m2 thermal panels, supplying 15% of total heat demand
Heat pump to sea and aquifers

Kronsberg, Hanover
70ha area S-E of Hanover
Grid blocks
50kWh/m2/yr heating demand
Passive house development of 32 houses with demand of 15 kWh/m2year
CHP district heating

Also Helsinki, Oslo, Utrecht and Freiburg

Sherwood Energy Village

Building and Housing Association conference on Sustainable Communities, Olympia 2006

A Wadhwa

Las Vegas.  The idea of a sustainable neighbourhood on the edge of Las Vegas.  No attempt to get away from the inherent contradictions in this.  Reminded us that there are cities which will be abandoned as oil prices rise and climate change worsens.

John Whitelegg

Change in real costs of transport, info from DfT 2010 strategy document.  Real cost of motoring static, real cost of public transport growing in line with incomes. (Therefore purchasing power for p.t. is static, purchasing power for motoring is growing.)

Travel plans, leading to 20% drop in CO2 emissions

Personalised travel planning
York intelligent travel, DfT funded 14 such projects

Car parking subsidy for staff/employees

C Fry
www.c4s.info
“making smarter choices work” DfT website
www.webtag.org.uk – Appraisal summary table for transport measures/projects

M Lawton

www.regenatec.com plant oil conversions

Cities for Climate Protection  www.iclei.org/europe/ccp
ICLEI Stockholm conference

The conference ends tomorrow and is mostly over. I will be doing a detailed report on the various presentations I attended.   At this stage I will just point you to a very useful website www.sibart.org

I’m away from Dublin until Thursday so apologies to everyone who has difficulty contacting me and especially to people who are waiting for me to get back to them on various things.  I’m writing this from Oxford, which I reached (by boat and train) today for the Solar Cities conference.

I’ll be doing a report on it when I return, but I’ll try to do a daily update to the website while I’m here. 

Most striking today was the speech by Nicky Gavron, Deputy Mayor of London, which has set up a Climate Change Agency for the city.  They are planning to establish an Energy Services Company and are particulary interested in decentralised electricity generation.  She also referred to a recent report "Powering London into the 21st Century"   which I haven’t had a chance to look at yet.

The other significant point she made was that congestion charging in the rather small area of the centre of London has reduced CO₂ emissions by 19% and that while most people were dubious about it or against it before it was introduced it is now very popular.

Thanks to everyone who made it along to the pub quiz in Baldoyle on 30th. We raised €670 thanks to very generous donations from participants but also those who donated the great raffle prizes.  Particular thanks to those who worked on the night and in organising the quiz during the weeks before it – Fionnuala, Deborah, John, Liz, Robbie, and to Brian for the lend of the speaker system.