After almost five years of negotiations, Councillors voted 48 to 14 to reject a deal which would have seen the sale of one of Dublin City Council’s largest sites, the Oscar Traynor site in Santry, to developer Glenveagh Homes, despite having voted in favour of the plan, 53 to 10, in 2017.
The change of heart is related to the number of proposed private homes within the scheme. The terms of the 2017 agreement were that 20% of the houses would be affordable housing, 30% social and 50% private. Of the 853 houses, the breakdown would have been 172, 253 and 428, respectively.
A project for 800 homes in St Michael’s Estate in Inchicore ran into similar difficulties. However, it was overcome when the developers, Bartra, agreed to sell a proportion of the houses to the council for a cost rent scheme. Despite the fact that Glenveagh were willing to sell over 50% of the private homes on the Oscar Traynor site to the council for a cost rent scheme, the council still decided to reject the project.
Instead, it was decided that the Santry site would be developed by the Council for Public Housing. The Council’s head of housing, Brendan Kenny, stressed that the houses were “badly needed”, warned that the project would run aground and that the credibility of the Council would be “severely dented.”
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