Residentialisation of Dún Laoghaire Town will push small businesses out!
Opinion Piece by Eoin Costello
Residentialisation of Dún Laoghaire Town will push small businesses out - Why? Because for the past 10 years property zoned residential is worth vastly more than property that is zoned commercial.
Is there a risk that small businesses will be pushed out of our town centre? This is the reality I had to consider when I saw the latest in many planning applications to convert retail/commercially zoned space in our town centre to residential.
Anyone that knows me knows I believe, based on my research, that the future vibrancy of Irish towns and their communities of small businesses, are intertwined.
“What’s the collective noun for a group of small businesses? A town”
I raised my concern about converting street front commercial premises into residential earlier this year when I saw an article in the Irish Times about a former shop in Dun Laoghaire with a 'gushing' description of the 'benefit' of effectively converting Ireland's main streets to residential quarters selling for €1 million (the shop now residential property had an offer price of €945,000) to an incrowd.
Given the depressed prices for retail property in our town centres for many years now, there is an immediate uplift of €100,000+ in the property's value if the buyer can convince the Council to change the designation from retail to residential. Even the briefest read of the piece in the Irish Time about the former retail premises turned ‘rock musician’s pad’ tells a story in itself, since losing its role as a service provider to the local community the now residential property appears to be flipped 3 times in 7 years, 2015, 2019 and back on the market in 2022.
Of course there is space in our town centres for residential conversions, there is a huge amount of vacant space above premises on all our high streets that would be perfect for becoming residential.
Having vibrant town's across rural Ireland comes down, as I argued in DigitalHQ clg's submission to DLR's County Development plan ( https://bit.ly/3RSYwqe) to a simple economic multiplier.
The multiplier effect is essential to the vibrancy of towns
The main argument against converting existing street facing commercial/retail space into residential is the multiplier effect as follows:
-a small shop may attract 40 people a day into the town,
-a small office locates 6 to 10 people in the town for the working day,
-an equivalent residential dwelling could accommodate 2 adults/1 musician with far less spillover benefits to the town's community of small businesses and social enterprises.
Chad Gilmer has shown with Glasshouses 2 that vacant retail can be successfully converted into office space, residential is not the only option for long term vacant retail space and due to the economic multiplier that towns depend on, residential is always a second best option to office space. Even smaller units, such as the Tax Assist office on Patrick Street shows that small spaces can operate successfully at the street level rather than residential.
If residential is the answer for supporting our remaining businesses then why are these shops long gone from this housing estate
When I grew up I used to visit my grand dad in Redesdale Estate in Stillorgan. This row of buildings was full of bustling shops in the heart of the residential area. Surely the fact that all the shops are long gone shows that increasing residential occupation in our town centres may fill empty retail buildings in the short term but it is not the answer to sustaining the economic vibrancy of a town.
Our town of Dun Laoghaire cannot be accused of not doing enough during the current housing crises. Substantial housing developments in our town have been applied for (102 no. Build-to-Rent residential apartments by Fitzwilliam Developments on the St. Michael’s car park site, the TED Castles site coming up to York Road proposal for 161 no. units (26 no. studio apartment units, 103 no. 1 bed apartment units and 32 no. 2 bed apartment units), the conversion of approximately 40 offices at the Adelphi Centre to apartments a number of years ago, a future large scale application being formulated for the Boylan Centre) and those that are gong to open shortly including the coliving development on Eblana Avenue ( 71 No. apartments consisting of 1 no. studio apartment; 12 no. one bedroom apartments; 51 no. two bedroom apartments; 7 no. three bedroom apartments) and 30 units at the former Dunnes Stores food supermarket new coliving space on Northumberland Avenue.
A Critical Mass of Businesses are needed to sustain a town’s claim to be a town rather than a residential housing estate with some shops
When the BID existed we estimated (approximately 2018) that there were approximately 550 businesses rateable business in the BID district with a 50/50 breakdown of B2C shop frontage businesses and B2B office/non shop front businesses. The area designated as the BID district largely ran horizontally from People's Park to York Road and vertically from the base of Marine Road to the top of Patrick Street where it meets Tivoli Road. We counted approximately 264 shop fronts/frontages for businesses facing those streets.
Dun Laoghaire had two school uniform shops a couple of years ago Uniformity and Corrs, now it has none. My concern is that over time the critical mass of businesses in the town may be undermined by this trend of closing shops and putting housing on our main streets instead.
You can see below what happened to the Uniformity outlet, now two houses and no uniforms. Someone justified this saying “Well the school uniform business has changed now” and on such a case by case basis the ceasing of many aspects of the traditional commercial activity of a town, from insurance brokers to record retailers, can be used to justify the case for conversion to residential. However on a case by case basis one could justify pulling metal support bars out of the Eiffel Tower, because there are so many of them, however past a certain point the structural integrity of what it is with so many interdependent parts, is put at serious risk.
BEFORE AFTER
The latest businesses to make way for planning application
What I read in the window
What I saw on the Planning Application
Recent conversions of the rear of gardens and the main house/shop appear to be significantly compromising the commercial space left available post the grant of planning.
An example of this is 67a Upper, George’s Street Upper, Dún Laoghaire.
Post the conversion work the dimensions of this commercial space are Dimensions of kiosk shop at 5.5m deep 3.5m wide while the dimensions of the former Yungs commercial space located next door is 24.2 metres deep and 3.5m wide.
Post the conversion work 67 Upper George’s Street is more akin to a kiosk than a commercial space as a substantial amount of the commercial space has been converted to residential within the building. This leaves the commercial space as almost an afterthought and due to the problem that kiosks depend entirely on passing trade and are subject to a high turnover rate of tenants, such space is not viable as commercial space.
Is there a hierarchy for economic vibrancy of a town centre?
From a footfall point of view a popular shop has the greatest pull, a busy office is second best, a private residential is the third best option.
