Four substantial homes planned for Mount Merrion

A planning application has been lodged to construct four substantial semi-detached homes at Fortwilliam Cottage in Mount Merrion, south Dublin. The property is accessed from the Stillorgan Road and is bounded to the north by the Fortwilliam apartment complex.

It currently comprises a 120sq m cottage that has lain derelict for years on a sizeable 0.31 acre site. Two of the proposed houses will be two storeys and 220sq m and 242sq m each in size. The other two houses will extend to 237sq m and 241sq m each and will be three storeys high. Each of the houses will have off-street parking. The developer of the proposed scheme is Fortwilliam Mount Merrion Developments, whose two directors are Keith Craddock, asset manager at Green Property, and Ann Power, a property consultant at Halcyon Fund Management.

In 2007, Fortwilliam Cottage traded hands for €2.7 million at auction and is listed in the property price register as having resold for just €835,000 in December 2013 – a 69 per cent drop in value. The 2007 buyer was Capital D Properties, a company that acquired mainly trophy redbrick houses in Dublin 4 and 6 with the intention of refurbishing them and selling them for a profit. The company was incorporated in November 2006, and tens of millions of euros were spent shortly after buying up property before the acquisitions streak reportedly stopped in early 2008.

Due to the ill timing of the venture, there has been a constant stream of former Capital D properties such as Fortwilliam Cottage on the market in recent years at knockdown prices.