Council announces biggest project since regeneration of Ballymun

Extensive tracts of vacant State-owned land designated for housing, in some cases for decades, is finally to be developed by Dublin City Council, to provide more than 1,300 new homes.

The housing will be built over three sites, but as a whole it represents the biggest residential programme in the capital since the boom and the biggest housing project undertaken by the council since the regeneration of Ballymun and Fatima Mansions.

In August 2014 the council's head of housing Dick Brady first put forward the proposal to develop "public housing" on 30 hectares of vacant council-owned land. He was making a distinction from purely social housing. Public housing, he said, would involve social housing, but also long-term rental housing to be offered at market rates, and "at cost" to lower paid workers.

Since then the model has developed to include the proposals announced in Budget 2016 for “affordable” starter homes geared towards first-time buyers and costing €300,000 or less.

Details of exactly how many homes will be built on each site, including how many are to rent, how many will be for sale and how many will be reserved for those on the council’s social housing waiting list, will be presented to city councillors tomorrow.

Bought in the 1980s

The largest site – 17-hectares at Coolock Lane, at the Santry end of Oscar Traynor Road, just east of the entrance to the Dublin Port Tunnel, was bought by the council in the 1980s and has been the subject of a number of schemes since. Despite the land being surrounded by housing estates built in the 1970s and 1980s, none of the planned schemes ever came to fruition.

This site will accommodate half of all the housing proposed, with some 655 houses and apartments planned. More than 70 per cent of these (462) will be offered for sale, with 252 to be sold privately and the rest a mixture of private and affordable sales. The remainder of the site will have 74 social units, 40 senior citizens homes and 79 affordable rental units.

A far larger proportion of affordable rental housing could be located in O’Devaney Gardens. The council plans 398 homes on the site which was to have been developed under a public private partnership with Bernard McNamara.

Following the collapse of this deal in 2008, the council drew up plans to redevelop O’Devaney using public money and secured planning permission in 2011, but two years ago conceded it could not raise the necessary funds and shelved the project.

Most of the blocks have been demolished. Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly had wanted the council to refurbish 64 empty flats at a cost of €4.72 million, for use for homeless families, but councillors scrapped his proposal in the hope the land would eventually be developed for housing.

The council now hopes to use its existing planning permission for 110 affordable homes, with the tenure mix for the rest of the site yet to be determined.

The third site, St Michael’s Estate is, following the direction of the Department of the Environment, to be retained largely for private housing. Last year the council completed 75 social houses and apartments on the site of the demolished late-1960s flat complex, following another failed McNamara deal. Of the 300 homes planned under the new development, 30 will be social housing and 36 for senior citizens, with the rest to be sold privately.

The council’s housing department is to seek approval from councillors tomorrow to proceed immediately to develop the lands at Oscar Traynor, although its says the other sites could be developed concurrently, using “appropriate procurement”.

It hasn’t yet said what form that procurement will take, although it earlier this year received expressions of interest in the lands from more than 60 developers, investors and social and co-operative housing bodies.

While the broad thrust of the programme, particularly the development of social, rental and affordable housing, is likely to find favour with councillors, the quantum of private housing proposed for public land, may be a stumbling block.