Emmet Road Redevelopment Project Timeline Unveiled By DCC
By: Aidan Crowley:
Dublin City Council (DCC) has unveiled the timeline for the construction of five hundred and seventy-eight social and cost-rental apartments on the site of the old St. Michael’s Estate, at Emmet Road, Inchicore. In a recent presentation to councillors, it was revealed that the construction works to prepare the substantial lands, on the site of the 1960’s flats complex, demolished twelve years ago and adjacent to the historical Richmond Barracks, are due to begin in March.
Just over three-quarters of the apartments on the new estate, now named Emmet Road, will be used for cost-rental housing, for low and middle-income workers, while the remaining one hundred and thirty-seven will accommodate people on the city’s social housing waiting list.
The next phase in DCC’s flagship housing scheme will proceed in November when builders are due to begin construction on the new homes and ancillary community facilities, according to Sandra McAleer, the council’s project manager.
However, this timeline was dependant on an agreement being made between councillors, enabling the council to borrow Euros 132.5 million, which has now been approved. This loan will be earmarked to assist the funding of the cost-rental homes, explained McAleer, at a recent meeting of the council’s housing and social inclusion committee.
Mick Mulhern, the assistant chief executive in charge of the council’s housing programme, expressed concern about the risks involved in the council incurring such a large debt. One solution, according to Mulhern, would be to outsource the new estate’s management, rather than retain it “in-house”.
“It’s not a building that could just find its way into our housing maintenance plan and be managed in that way. It’s just, the level of risk that the council takes, you need a team dedicated, focused on managing this building, because the level of borrowing that we have to make repayments on”, he said.
Local Sinn Fein Councillor, Daithi Doolan, expressed the opinion that the recent presentation on the long-delayed Emmet Road housing scheme was probably the most important one that councillors, sitting on the committee, had viewed
He emphasised the disparity between the delivery model of the Inchicore site and those in place for housing schemes, built by private developers, at the O’Devaney Gardens site in Stoneybatter and on Oscar Traynor Road in Coolock.
All three housing schemes have been on DCC’s agenda for development under its headline Housing Lands Initiative. In past council terms, some fierce debate raged over the composition of housing to be constructed on these lands. Many councillors were strongly opposed to the concept of any portion of the lands being used for building private housing, to be sold at market rates.
In the end, the O’Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road housing developments have emerged as a mix of social, affordable and market-rate private homes. The council has worked with private developers, while maximising the value of the lands, in order to fund the overall projects.
However, the housing development at Emmet Road is to be entirely public in nature, with the council employing what is known as a “direct build” model. This requires it to seek a 40-year loan from State lender, the Housing Finance Agency, which required the approval of councillors in order for the construction process to proceed.
“It is absolutely, wholly, being delivered by Dublin City Council. We were told this would never happen”, said Doolan.
According to McAleer, DCC plans to draw up three separate contracts in order to complete the Emmet Road redevelopment project. The first of these will enable the site to be prepared for construction, with the demolition of the current HSE building and the old community centre and the installation of a series of utilities. A contractor for this has already been hired. “They will be starting on site in March this year”, she said.
The second constitutes the main construction contract for the new homes and most of the community facilities, including a new public library, crèche, community hub and new public spaces. The council has drawn up a short-list of contractors for these works and they will go out to tender for bids from them, this month, she explained.
The third contract will involve the construction of a block at the front of the site, where ninety-one homes will be built above a new supermarket. According to McAleer, the logistics for this arrangement are yet to be hammered out. However, the current thinking is that the developer will build and keep the new supermarket, while the council will retain ownership of the new homes. The entire project should be fully completed by the third quarter of 2028, a decade after it was initially announced, according to the presentation.
In order to meet the deadlines, as currently set out, an agreement had to be reached among councillors that will enable DCC to borrow the large sum required to build the housing scheme, McAleer informed councillors at the recent committee meeting.
The Department of Housing is funding the one hundred and thirty-seven social homes and is contributing to the cost of building the crèche and community hub, she explained. It is also donating Euros 150,000 per home for the cost-rental apartments, she said.
In order to help cover the construction of the four hundred and forty-one cost-rental homes, the council will secure a government grant of Euros 66,150,000, leaving a gap of Euros 132.5 million to fund the apartments, which are expected to cost up to Euros 450,500 each to build.
However, the council has to find the remaining funds for construction of this category of housing, she added. “We must borrow. The Housing Finance Agency has quoted them 3.3% interest for a 40-year loan”, she concluded.
Meanwhile, the rents which the new tenants will be charged are expected to be determined later this year, according to Mulhern.
The plans for the redevelopment project at the old St. Michael’s Estate were announced back in July 2018 by the then Minister for Housing, Eoghan Murphy. An application to An Bord Pleanala was finally made in October 2022, with planning permission being granted in July 2023.
St. Michael’s Estate had been earmarked for regeneration since the late 1990’s. It was one of five sites which were due to be redeveloped with a mix of social and private housing, under a public-private partnership deal between DCC and developer, Bernard McMamara, which collapsed in 2008.
