New Development at Ballymastone, Donabate

Sleepy

Fingal County Council are currently seeing interest from developers to build over 1000 new units on their lands in Ballymastone, Donabate.

http://www.thejournal.ie/fingal-council-private-developers-4183040-Aug2018/

There's been a huge amount of residential development going on in the area (the population is currently being expected to double within the next 5/6 years) even though services are already at breaking point (trains are full, buses are irregular, no police station, schools at capacity etc.) but what concerns me most about the development are the proposed allocation of 50% of the units as private, 20% as affordable and 30% social housing.

This allocation on a development of this size is, imo, likely to result in a large social housing ghetto and all the social problems that entails. I can't see those private units ending up owner-occupied as most won't want to buy into an area with 30% social housing. I see them ending up being bought by housing associations, landlords happy to accept HAP / Long Term Lease arrangements etc. and resulting in an estate where almost 80% of the residents are in social housing of some sort or another while the 20% who were desparate enough to buy the affordable housing units end up in negative equity and rueing the day they signed the mortgage...

Am I wrong? Has anyone any knowledge of a large scale development in a small Irish town* with an allocation along these lines that has worked out well? I'm not against social housing (in fact I think we should be building a lot more of it) but, even according to the council's own LADP, 10% of any new development would seem a more appropriate level than 30%.

* It seems Donabate's status as a village is going to become a thing of the past, though it certainly doesn't have the amenities one would expect of a "town"

wind77

I completely agree! 10% far more appropriate. I believe Darndale had 40% social housing...

Elessar

I completely echo your concerns Sleepy. Donabate is a great little town but that sort of concentration of social housing is absolutely unacceptable. I fear for the towns future, given other large scale social housing failures like Darndale, Ballymun etc. Not saying its going to be like these but it only takes a few scumbag "tenants" to ruin an area. I would consider buying in Donabate in the next few years but I want to wait and see if this 30% allocation goes ahead (that's at least 300 social houses in that development alone!) and what effect it will have.

Regarding infrastructure the council actually have a good LAP (local area plan, you can read on their website) that includes new infrastructure including new schools and amenities with all the new developments. A lot of it based on the completion of the new distributor road. The trains are indeed full at peak times but this is a wider problem of IE and the economy and needs to be tackled anyway.

I don't know why the allocation is not 10%? Fingal are probably trying to cram as much as they can into any new development to meet the government targets. I doubt any local politician will be complaining. It's a poisoned chalice. Lets hope the development prices are high enough that something closer to the 10% will all that fingal can afford.

the_syco

Elessar wrote: »

I don't know why the allocation is not 10%?

It's for haggling. It'll probably end up being 15%, with the local CC's being seen as heroes for getting it down that far.

In the past, developers have just paid off the CC's instead of building the 10% social housing.

FCC is seeing if they can get any takers on a project this big, and will use the percentage it ends up with as what it'll expect other, smaller estates to be.