63m plan for estate dropped as council sells site

Dublin City Council has abandoned plans to redevelop one of the city's most deprived areas, St Michael's Estate in Inchicore, because of a lack of money.

Instead, the council intends to sell the lucrative 11-acre site to private developers, who will be required to provide some social housing in a public-private partnership.

The council's decision to relinquish control of the €63 million flagship regeneration plan has caused anger in the community, which had been involved in consultations for over two years.

However, the council maintained that using private developers could halve the eventual cost of rebuilding, as well as ensuring a better social mix.

The demolition of the existing high-rise flats, which are now largely empty, will still go ahead before the end of the year, according to Mr John O'Connor, head of the council's housing department.

The Department of Environment prompted the change in approach by refusing to sanction the original plans for financial reasons. Instead, it told the council to go for the PPP approach.

Local Fine Gael councillor, Ms Catherine Byrne, said the decision was a "slap in the face" for local people.

"They feel the original plan was a good one, which was worked out in consultation with the estate and around. Now we fear all we'll get is high-rise." Ms Eilish Comerford of the local Family Resource Centre said it was "a breach of trust".

"This has come as a great shock to us. You wonder why they misled us and wasted so much time. Local people only want what they signed up for."

Ms Comerford also questioned whether a private developer was capable of delivering the social mix envisaged under the original plan.

However, Mr O'Connor said the 60 or so families remaining in the flats will be rehoused under any PPP development.

He admitted that the council has spent more than €500,000 on its original plans but said not all the preparatory work had been wasted.

Any future development would probably be built higher than the existing plans and would contain a smaller proportion of social housing. Building is unlikely to start until 2005.

The site will be sold to private developers who will build a proportion of social housing to be sold back to the council, while the rest is developed for private housing.

The less social housing the site contains, the more valuable it is to a developer and the less the ultimate cost to the council.

Such partnerships are now standard Government policy for big building projects, such as the redevelopment of Fatima Mansions or the building of the Ringsend sewage treatment plant.