Plans for 850 State-subsidised Dublin homes at Oscar Traynor site to be lodged next month

Social, affordable and cost-rental housing to be completed by 2027

Plans for more than 850 State-subsidised homes on one of Dublin City Council’s largest sites will be lodged next month, almost eight years after the redevelopment scheme was first proposed.

Developer Glenveagh will seek permission from the council for the 853 homes at Oscar Traynor Road in Santry under a deal approved by city councillors last November.

Under the agreement, 40 per cent of the homes will be used for social housing, 40 per cent for cost-rental homes, and 20 per cent sold to low- and middle-income workers qualifying for the affordable purchase scheme.

The deal was approved one year after councillors rejected an earlier agreement with Glenveagh which would have resulted in 30 per cent social housing, 20 per cent affordable housing and 50 per cent of the homes sold privately by the developer.

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In a briefing for councillors on Wednesday representatives of Glenveagh said an application would be lodged with the council in mid-December using the new large-scale residential development (LSRD) system. LSRDs are replacing the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) system which allowed developers to bypass the council and lodge applications directly with An Bord Pleanála.

An indicative time-line presented to councillors envisages a grant of permission in mid-2023 with work starting on site by the end of next year. The scheme will include 240 houses, and 613 apartments and duplex units up to six storeys tall.

The homes will be developed in phases with houses to be built ahead of apartments. The first phase of 30-50 houses, to the southern end of the site is expected to be built by 2024 and the estate is expected to be fully completed by the end of 2027.

The 17-hectare site at the Santry end of Oscar Traynor Road, just to the east of the entrance to the Dublin Port Tunnel was bought by the council in the 1980s. It was the subject of a number of proposed industrial, recreational and housing schemes, but despite it being surrounded by housing estates built in the 1970s and 1980s, none of the planned schemes ever came to fruition.

In early 2015 the council’s housing department produced a plan for the redevelopment of vacant council land, including Oscar Traynor Road, in what was its first major housing development programme since the property crash.

In 2017, after two years of negotiations with council officials and the Department of Housing, 53 of the 63 city councillors approved plans for the redevelopment of the Santry lands, as well as the former flat complexes at O’Devaney Gardens and St Michael’s Estate. Under the agreement, 50 per cent of the homes would be private, 30 per cent social and 20 per cent affordable housing. Councillors later voted to shelve the Oscar Traynor deal to seek more public housing on the land.

Olivia Kelly

Olivia Kelly

Olivia Kelly is Dublin Editor of The Irish Times