15-0805 v3.X Limits to Growth - LH1

We have a new LBC project in Ireland and have a question regarding I01 Limits To Growth.

The project is for a building that is immersed in a permaculture setting (to be developed alongside the building but by the client - see attached business proposal) and will serve as both office/hq of this centre for research and consultancy/training on permaculture and forest food and as the residence of the client (the permaculturist).It is located generally on a wooded hill (within the grounds of his parents house) in an agriculturally zoned area on the edge of Dublin city. 

The vegetation and trees are a mix of native and naturalised but couldn't be described as sold growth. see drawings.More particularly the building is sited in a parcel of the property holding that up to recently was an apple and pear orchard but over recent years has become scrubland ie a mix of bushes, orchard trees with some older trees remaining. The client has also used it in the last couple of years as a testing ground for prototyping of novel approaches to micro bio-digestors for waste treatment etc. 

The building and landscape ensemble is inherently restorative to nature in that it and the permaculture development (and ongoing testbed research to come out of it) will together create a more productive fecund habitat and ecology on site. It stewards the ecological intensification, restoration and succession.We are trying to determine i) our designation for living transect and ii) compliance with I01 Limits to Growth.If the site is considered greenfield, we are then in Transect L1By some definitions we could also be considered to be in Transect L2 (rural agriculture) as the area is zoned agriculture from the local planning authority point of view and the plot ratio (FAR) is certainly at <0.9.Either way, to satisfy I1 LImits to Growth we could apply for exception I01-E1 4/2010 Greenfields Protecting Virgn Lands Or O01-E9 4/2010 Farming (in this case permaculture).It may also be that due to the transfer from native habitat to orchard and/or by the clients occasional use of it to test machinery (though as of now, i cannot find much to document this) it may qualify as a Previously Developed.

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