Cantillon: Nama keen to fast-track planning for Glass Bottle site

Nama has signalled that designating the old Irish Glass Bottle site (above) in Ringsend, Dublin, as a strategic development zone could allow it to fast-track planning permission for up to 3,000 new homes there.

The site on the southside of the city became a symbol of boom-era hubris. In 2007, a group including developer Bernard McNamara and the State-owned Dublin Docklands Development Authority bought the property from Sean Coulson's Ardagh for €412 million with money borrowed from Anglo Irish Bank.

They had ambitious plans for the site, billed as the last remaining vacant plot in Dublin 4, but the property market and banking system collapsed. Its price quickly tumbled to a fraction of what was paid. At the recession’s trough some estimated its worth at about €40 million, a wipeout of 90 per cent. Consequently, nobody turned so much as a sod there and it lies idle today.

Nama acquired the loans and chairman Frank Daly told TDs recently that it could be used to build up to 3,000 new homes. He said that the agency is "strongly of the view" that designating it as a strategic development zone would speed up planning for the area.

There are some calls for the site to be used specifically for social housing and the Anti-Austerity Alliance is holding a public meeting soon to try drum up support for this.

Nama did not indicate one way or the other that it intended using the site specifically for social housing. However Daly and chief executive, Brendan McDonagh, had to point out to several politicians on the Committee on Housing and Homelessness that the agency has to recoup the €32 billion of public money it spent bailing out banks which loaned money to fund insanely priced deals such as the Glass Bottle site.

On that basis, it is unlikely that Nama would use a site with the Glass Bottle’s commercial potential solely for social housing, although it could designate part of it for this purpose.

Either way, its plans are purely academic until it negotiates the first hurdle and gets permission – fast tracked or otherwise – from Dublin City Council.