Around the Block: Now that the early skiing and late shooting is over, and people are long back from South Africa, Thailand and the antipodes, it's time to don the dickie bow and head for Burlo tonight where the Society of Chartered Surveyors is holding its annual knees-up.
One of the biggest functions of the year, it attracts over 1,000 property people, many of them wealthy investors keen to work the room and find out what deals are going down. With overseas portfolios now the norm for many of the big players, the focus this year will change to the likely investment opportunities at home, which admittedly are thin on the ground apart from the planned sale and leaseback of the old AIB headquarters in Ballsbridge.
Ballsbridge is also on the mind of the surprise guest of honour speaker, none other than Sean Dunne who now has several interesting years ahead of him to redevelop the knock-out Jurys Doyle site. While he won't be giving away any trade secrets on his plans tonight, he may touch on the concept of a high density, signature scheme that just might bring a bit of life to the area.
Grehan gets the green light in west Dublin
The owner of the other big Ballsbridge site, Ray Grehan got some good news this week with the decision by An Bord Pleanála to grant permission for no less than 577 apartments and houses on the former St Loman's Hospital site in west Dublin which he bought a couple of years ago for €32 million. Having been turned down twice by the planners, the board's decision must have been a relief, and will ensure Grehan a good bit of cash flow by the end of the year, before he gets stuck into the former vets' college site in Ballsbridge. Several new homes agents have been invited to pitch for the business of selling the apartments he's going to build.
These may come on stream towards the end of this year, as Grehan favours selling large tranches off the plans to kick-start construction. At this rate he'll be well advanced on the site, before Sean Dunne moves in next door. Jurys Doyle is not due to vacate for another two years giving him enough time to impress the planners. The density on both sites will determine the prices, but it's hard to imagine apartments in either scheme starting at less than €1 million.
Slowly, slowly for fast track planning process
When Noel Dempsey announced his SDZ (strategic development zones) plan to speed up new housebuilding back in 2000, developers thought that it really might be possible to fast track their schemes for first-time buyers.
Hansfield in Clonee is one such site, where joint developers Menolly Homes, Manor Park Homes and Castlethorn were first to apply for around 2,000 units under what was meant to be a revolutionary scheme. Lo and behold they finally got the go-ahead this week for 1,600 units, after interminable wranglings between Fingal and An Bord Pleanála who had different ideas about what SDZs should be.
Had the developers gone through the bog standard planning process, they would have built and sold at least 500 homes by now. So much for Government initiatives on planning.
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