Dublin housing plan requires over €80m in infrastructure

More than €80 million in essential infrastructure is needed to make key privately owned sites in Dublin city ready for large-scale housing development, Dublin City Council has said.

Six areas in the city – the largest of which is the planned new strategic development zone on the Poolbeg peninsula – have been identified as having the potential to provide a combined total of almost 10,000 homes.

However, the development of these lands has been held back because of inadequate water, sewerage and transport infrastructure.

Activation fund

The cost of the work needed to open up these lands, as well as the infrastructure required to make council-owned lands ready for housing, could swallow up most of the Government’s €200 million local infrastructure activation fund, the council’s executive housing manager

Tony Flynn

said.

The six housing development areas require levels of funding ranging from €4 million to €25 million per site to make the construction of housing a realistic option for private developers, many of whom are now National Asset Management Agency (Nama) debtors.

Two areas need €25 million each to make their lands housing-ready – the Poolbeg peninsula at Dublin city’s southeast end and, slightly closer to the city, the docklands area.

The Government earlier this year approved plans for 3,000 homes on the former Irish Glass Bottle site and surrounding lands on the peninsula, using fast-track planning.

However, as a former industrial site, the area lacks most of the infrastructure necessary to support housing.

A new road network would be essential, and while the factories would have had electricity and sewerage connections, significant investment would be needed to carry these utilities to housing estates.

A sum of €25 million would not cover the extent of infrastructure needed, but would get the ball rolling, with the resulting developments generating levies to add to the infrastructure development pot.

Roads and bridges

Similarly, while the council has identified €25 million for “roads and bridges” in the docklands area, to facilitate the construction of 2,400 more apartments there, a planned new bridge to link the docklands with Poolbeg has a price tag of €25-€30 million.

Two other bridges across the Liffey are also planned.

At a site at the north fringe of the city, in the Clongriffin area, €10 million is needed for roads to service land which would accommodate 1,000 homes in mostly Nama-funded developments.

The council also intends to draft a local area plan to kickstart the development of large plots of vacant lands at Cherry Orchard, which is to the west of Ballyfermot and just inside the M50.

Some of these lands are council-owned, but others are private.

The council estimates spending €9 million on installing water infrastructure on these lands would allow 2,000 homes to be built.

Cigarette factory

The former Player Wills cigarette factory site on the

South Circular Road

in Dublin 8 came under the control of Nama earlier this year.

It could, the council said, accommodate 500 homes, if a range of utility services costing about €8 million were installed.

This site, the most central and arguably the best-located of the six, backs on to St Teresa’s Gardens, the council flat complex which is currently undergoing redevelopment.

The smallest infrastructural costs would be incurred in the Pelletstown site, between Ashtown and Cabra in Dublin, where €4 million for a new rail station would allow the development of almost 700 homes.

Pelletstown is one of the few areas in the city where large-scale residential construction is ongoing and also one of the few where new apartments are on sale for under €300,000.

However, residents have objected to any more development without new infrastructure, such as the station.