Ballymun co-op seeks €200,000 back from city council

A co-operative housing body with planning permission for 40 homes on the site chosen for modular housing in Ballymun wants Dublin City Council to reimburse €200,000 invested by its members.

The co-op CTSL has had planning permission since 2007 to build homes at the site on Balbutcher Lane in northwest Ballymun. The planning permission does not expire until 2017, but the co-op said the council had rendered its permission null and void by proceeding to install modular housing for homeless families on the land.

CTSL wants the council to return the €5,000 deposit invested by each member. The co-op will meet council officials today and said it would have no choice but to take legal action, if there is no satisfactory resolution to their claim.

Ballymun Regeneration Ltd (BRL), the council-owned company charged with the regeneration of the north Dublin suburb, in 2002 sought expressions of interest from local residents in setting up a co-op to build their own homes on council land.

A group, initially made up of parents from the local Gaelscoil, Scoil an tSeachtar Laoch, was accepted by BRL. Each of the 40 members then had to put up €5,000 to bring the project to tender stage.

“We had a builder ready to start,” co-op member Deirdre Taylor said. “Dublin City Council were to provide a bridging loan for the build, which would be paid back when the houses were finished and the members got their mortgages. Then in 2010, the council refused to draw down the loan on our behalf.The council subsequently said the site was big enough to accommodate both the modular housing and the co-op housing.”

Ms Taylor said that did not resolve the matter. “The portion of the site where the modular housing is being put is the land we have planning permission for.”

Some members of the co-op were involved in a protest at the site, but Ms Taylor said CTSL had asked that they end their picket to allow talks with the council. A spokesman for the council said it had agreed a consultative process with the co-operatives involved.