Sir, Can the proposal to build a 20 storey apartment block in Sheriff Street, as reported in your Property section (June 15th) be serious? Think of the massive shadow this huge building, two storeys higher than Liberty Hall, would cast across our community, while it overlooks the ordinary one and two storey family homes as far back as the tracks at East Wall.
The developers, Chesterbridge, got the old flats and site for the price of a few Ballsbridge houses (£4.3 million) and now stand to make a fortune in this innercity tax incentive area. The new development, according to your report, is going to face the International Financial Services Centre and turn its back on the "run down areas of Sheriff Street. Run down? It should be noted that most of the houses in Lower Sheriff Street are less than five years old!
The previous development by the Custom House Docks Development Authority (CHDDA) of part of our North Wall Parish has had little positive impact on the 150 year old parish community in which it resides. The interaction and job opportunities have been minimal - with a few notable exceptions, such as Jurys Custom House Inn.
And now CHDDA has been subsumed into DDDA (Dublin Docks Development Authority), taking in both sides of the river but excluding, for some strange reason, the area controlled by the actual Port & Docks Board. The effect will be the same. We have already had the invasion of the suits" but now we are to have this continual colonisation of our community by other outside interests who seem to have little regard for the locals.
I believe the people of the east London docklands had similar problems. But there the local community organisations, under TELCO, now have a register of the abilities and skills of the local unemployed that is taken seriously by builders. So the local community gets some benefit from the "development" of their area at least in the early phase.
For justice's sake it's time to say: "Hang on a minute. What about the local people?" - Yours, etc.
Parish Priest,
Church of St Laurence O'Toole,
Sheriff Street,
Dublin 1.