Masterplans for housing do not make sense, say councillors
By Hayden Moore
“THE MATHS doesn’t stack up” exclaimed a councillor at the recent monthly meeting of South Dublin County Council over the confusion of the provisional breakdown of Mixed Tenure Housing Developments across the county.
Currently in the process of finalising the masterplan for sites in Killinarden and Clonburris where a proposed 500 and 270 homes will be delivered, 250 homes were also proposed for the controversial site in Rathcoole during the council’s update.
An artist’s impression of the Rathcoole site which will comprise of housing (left) and sport facilities (right)
€18.4 million in funding for infrastructure to open up the three sites has been provisionally approved by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government – providing the opportunity for subsidy of around €35,000 per home.
Of that overall figure, €3.3m was provisionally allocated to the site earmarked for development in Rathcoole where the council outlined a mix of 100 affordable homes, 100 social and 50 private.
The proposal for the site was met with anger by a lot of councillors including Independent councillor Paul Gogarty.
Expressing concerns over the potential loss of 10,000 trees where the proposed site is, on top of the Rathcoole Woodland, Cllr Gogarty put a question to the council about the number of trees that have been planted or cut down in the past 5 years.
“The response from the council was that the council planted 4,888 trees and at the same time removed 4,185 – meaning that over the last 5 years the council planted 703 extra trees during this period,” explained Cllr Gogarty.
“So depending on the exact number of trees, to build on an area that could be cutting down up to 10,000 native trees that have developed over a period to me is environmental vandalism that flies in the face of our climate-change strategy.”
There also remains a lot of confusion surrounding the ownership of the land in Rathcoole, with the council saying that they own all of the land up there, but with Dublin County Board also apparently owning 26 acres up there too.
Sinn Féin councillor William Joseph Carey brought this point up with the County Manager on Monday evening saying: “I asked a factual question because it was necessary to find out what was going on up in Rathcoole.
“I asked a simple question about who actually owns the land, which included the woodlands, I specifically asked about the playing pitches and I specifically asked about the land that was allocated for schools, and the answer came back that all of the land involved is owned by Sth Dublin Co Council.”
135 AFFORDABLE: Phase One of Clonburris site
In which Mayor Vicki Casserly, chair of the meeting, told Cllr Carey that the manager would have to respond to his query at a later date.
The council did add however that they are aware of concerns surrounding transport and the ecological issues in the area of the proposed development in Rathcoole and are committed to delivering detailed assessments of both the transport and environmental implications.
The site in Killinarden received the largest provisional allocation with €8.9m being set aside to develop the provisional mix of 300 affordable, 100 social and 100 private homes.
A community and parkland development plan is also included within the budget with a view to develop Killinarden Park, next to the proposed housing beside Sacred Heart Football Club.
The breakdown of housing for Phase One of the Clonburris site is 135 affordable and 135 social homes with a budget of €6.2m.
The biggest concern in the council chamber late on Monday evening was that of “adding to the number of privately owned houses”, as Green Party’s Cllr Peter Kavanagh exclaimed.
Solidarity councillor Sandra Fay, who is also a maths teacher in St Mark’s Community School, told the council that the “maths doesn’t stack up” in terms of the allocated mix of housing with people on a €50,000 salary not being able to afford rent.
“Market rent is not fit for purpose, so we need to be providing sustainable housing for all and actually all these houses moving forward should be public housing.”
An amendment to the Killinarden site in relation to private homes was also proposed by Sinn Féin Cllr Louise Dunne to have 400 affordable and 100 social homes, with Cllr Cathal King seconding it.
The council also outlined the design of the 140 affordable rental apartments in Belgard North to be 12 studio, 53 one-bed and 75 two-bed apartments.
