St Teresa’s Gardens: Permission granted for 540 social and cost-rental apartments at site

The construction of more than 540 social and cost-rental apartments at the site of the St Teresa’s Gardens flat complex in Dolphin’s Barn, Dublin 8, including a 15-storey block, has been granted permission by An Bord Pleanála.

Land Development Agency (LDA) three years ago announced it was taking on the redevelopment of St Teresa’s Gardens, 15 years after Dublin City Council proposed to redevelop the dilapidated 1950s flat complex.

Initially the LDA intended to build 700 apartments on the site in blocks up to 22-storeys tall, but it scaled back these plans following local and political opposition, eventually making an application in December of last year for 543 homes, of which just under 500 will be one- and two-bedroom apartments in blocks up to 15-storeys tall.

Just over 70 per cent of the apartments will be cost-rental homes, where the rent is based on the cost of building, managing and maintaining the homes, and not market rates.

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Aside from the cost-rental apartments, which will be available to low- and middle-income earners, the rest of the apartments will be allocated to tenants on the city council’s social housing waiting list.

Most of the apartments, 274, will have two bedrooms, with 225 one-bedroom apartments and 44 three-bedroom apartments.

The site, located off Donore Avenue, covers an area of 1.74 hectares (4.3 acres), and the new homes will be located next to the council’s recent development of 54 social homes on Margaret Kennedy Road that were also built on part of the former St Teresa’s Gardens lands.

Once one of the city’s largest council flat complexes, St Teresa’s Gardens was earmarked for regeneration in 2005, but the plan was scrapped in 2009 after the collapse of the property market.

In April 2013, the council announced plans to demolish 10 of the 12 flat blocks and refurbish two blocks to create 52 modern apartments, and to build 54 more houses and apartments.

Demolition began in February 2015. The refurbishment of the saved blocks was completed by the end of 2015. Construction of the new homes had been due to start in November 2015.

However, hazardous waste was found in October 2016, and the development was put on hold until the soil was decontaminated. Building of the houses eventually began in December 2018.

The full redevelopment of the rest of the site never got off the ground. In 2017, the council produced a masterplan for St Teresa’s, along with the former Player Wills cigarette factory and Bailey Gibson packaging plant sites on the South Circular Road.

The latter two were then owned by Nama and subsequently bought by US property group Hines.

The High Court in April dismissed a challenge to the development of 416 homes on the Bailey Gibson site but this has been appealed to the Supreme Court. Hines was also granted permission for the construction of 732 apartments across four blocks with one building rising to a height of 19 storeys on the Player Wills site.

This permission was also subject to a High Court challenge, and aspects of this case have been referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union for determination.