EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Chapter 11: Environment and Transport government comes to understand the mechanics of implementing its starting brownfield development targets. A number of relevant policy processes are noted in the following section. Enhanced short-term actions to prevent further sprawl and the development of emissions-intensive infrastructure, and to overcome barriers to active and public transport options, may also be required (Sims et al. , 2014). Avoiding sprawl means redoubling efforts to promote the alternative of well-located, good-quality, affordable, and active and public transport-centred communities – otherwise known as compact development in the NPF. Topic Box 11.4 details what, in a major report, the European Environment Agency and the Swiss Federal Office of the Environment described as essential guidelines to prevent sprawl (EEA and FOEN, 2016). Topic Box 11.4 Five Essential Guidelines to Prevent Urban Sprawl from the European Environment Agency (Source: EEA) Five essential guidelines to support efforts to control urban sprawl: n a clear separation of building zones and non‑building zones, and long-term settlement restriction n building in only designated building zones n preventing the dispersed expansion of built-up areas n the densification of existing built-up areas and minimum densities of new built-up areas n the integrated planning of transport and settlement development. Urban sprawl is essentially a permanent spatial pattern, and sustainability becomes more and more difficult to achieve as sprawl advances. Addressing sprawl, while accommodating population growth and urbanisation, requires increased density of development and integrated planning of sustainable transport. This requires redevelopment of low-density land in key locations, for compact development and a variety of uses. Dense village-centre type development, and block and city zone development, can be combined with mixed use to accommodate employment. Involving both national and local planning functions, developments would need the provision of high-quality public amenities and services, to promote attractiveness. Plans to avoid urban sprawl while accommodating population growth in the Swiss Canton of Zurich are discussed in Topic Box 11.5. Topic Box 11.5 Avoiding Urban Sprawl in Zurich Map 11.1  An example of densification from the Canton of Zurich, Switzerland (Source: Regierungsrat Kanton Zürich, 2014) The EEA discusses the case of the Canton of Zurich, where planning will densify existing built-up areas by approximately 20 per cent by 2040, effectively eliminating urban sprawl (EEA, 2016). Research in the Swiss national research programme on new urban quality concluded that the urbanisation of suburban areas is one of the main tasks for society in the 21st century, to accommodate a 20 per cent growth in population. Almost no further expansion of built-up areas is now allowed in the Canton of Zurich. Therefore, any increases in population have to be accommodated mostly in the existing built-up areas. The necessary densifications are relatively modest: on average, less than 20 per cent of the existing density as shown in Map 11.1. The densification takes the existing settlement types into account. Rural areas keep their rural character with densification of less than 10 per cent. The highest levels of densification (> 20%) occurs in the suburban areas shown in red. 293