ICLRD Conference

ICLRD2011Conference
In January, the ICLRD held its sixth annual conference: The Changing Business, Community and Spatial Planning Landscape: Doing More with Less. Sponsored by the Special EU Programmes Body, the conference was attended by 110 delegates from both sides of the border representing central, regional and local government, elected representatives, policy-makers, cross-border networks, community activists, academics and representatives of the business community. Recognizing that the past twelve months have represented a time of significant change for the island of Ireland, the conference focused on the changing budgetary, legislative and policy landscape, and the practical realities of reduced budgets.  It debated the need for implementing a period of austerity and the opportunities this can create for renaissance and resurgence. The proceedings of the conference are available on the ICLRD website.

The inaugural issue of Borderlands: the Journal of Spatial Planning in Ireland, ICLRD’s new journal, was launched by Anne Barrington and Mary Bunting, Joint Secretaries of the North-South Ministerial Council at the conference. This latest ICLRD initiative has been a number of years in planning and is the first journal of its kind to address spatial planning issues and local and regional development on the island of Ireland. Copies of the journal are available by contacting Eimear Donnelly at eimear.donnelly@qub.ac.uk.

ICLRD Workshop on Land Banks ICLRD organized a workshop on Land Banks, Surplus Housing and Unfinished Estates to address a major fall out of the banking crisis in Ireland.  Key presenters included:

  • Mr. Niall Cussen, Senior Planning Advisor, Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government on the state of the housing market in the Republic of Ireland – and the consequences of this for the economy, policy decision-making and communities;

  • Mr. Brian Rowntree, Chairman, Northern Ireland Housing Executive on the state of the housing market in Northern Ireland and the impact for the region of Northern-based assets – such as land banks and housing – being located within NAMA; and

  • Mr. Nic Retsinas, Senior Lecturer in Real Estate, Harvard Business School and Former Assistant Secretary for Housing-Federal Housing Commissioner at the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).