Dublin City Council proposes to provide €8.5 million from its annual capital allocation in 2009 to make an immediate start on the regeneration of St Michael’s Estate, O’Devaney Gardens and Dominick Street. The projects are no longer viable under the Public Private Partnership process that had been envisaged and Dublin City Council wants to address the immediate needs of its existing tenants as well as those on the city’s housing list.
Proposals are being put to the Elected Members at the December meeting of Dublin City Council this evening, which would mean that work will begin immediately on provision of 137 social and affordable homes in St Michael’s Estate, where a valid planning permission is in place. Work will also begin immediately on a design brief for residential development on the east side of Dominick Street and on designing 70 social and affordable homes in O’Devaney Gardens. Planning applications will then be made to An Bord Pleanála to get permission to build them. Preliminary estimates indicate an overall cost to the City Council, over a ten year period, for all three schemes, to be in the region of Euro €95million. Estimated costs for St Michael’s Estate are in the region of €36m. Dominick St will be in the region of €27m and O’Devaney Gardens in the region of €32million.
“We set up a multi-disciplinary Special Housing Taskforce to examine all regeneration options and address the immediate needs of our tenants. Their recommendation is to provide a sustainable regeneration of all three sites and in the first instance we should immediately build the necessary social and affordable housing that we can afford, using our annual budget, to address the immediate needs of our existing tenants and those on the housing list”, says Ciaran McNamara, Assistant City Manager. “In the case of St Michael’s Estate we have through the consultation process agreed with residents where the social and affordable housing should be built on the site and we will start to build them. We will not wait for private investment to kick in, though we are confident that all three locations are suitable to attracting private investment, in the medium to long term. While Dublin City Council continues to be open to considering other alternative solutions to deliver the regeneration of all three projects, we are not willing to wait around. Our tenants are our priority and we have to begin to address their needs.” “In the case of O’Devaney Gardens we will apply for the necessary planning permission to commence with 200 social and affordable houses and apartments. The demolition program will continue in O’Devaney Gardens as planned to allow us to start building as soon as planning permission is obtained. In Dominick Street we will apply for planning permission for 80 social apartments on the east side of the street. This site is already cleared and we will be in a position to commence building as soon as planning permission is obtained”
“We are committed to building sustainable communities in all three areas and while it will take longer than we and our tenants would like, we will move ahead as quickly as we can afford. Our plan is to start building community facilities together with the social and affordable housing. Our aim is to achieve the full package of quality, energy efficient, mixed tenure housing, together with retail, commercial and leisure facilities in the next ten years.”
The program will deliver approx. 220 social and 200 affordable dwellings. The program also includes extensive community buildings together with enhanced public open space. The inclusion of commercial outlets and private housing over the next 10 years will ensure sustainable mixed use communities that will transform the present sites and be of huge benefit to the surrounding areas.
ENDS