Republican News · Thursday 5 December 2002

Where is the social housing in the Spencer Dock Development?

BY ROISIN DE ROSA

Three weeks ago, the property pages of the newspapers screamed the headlines that the Dockland 'Dream homes' were selling like hotcakes, for prices ranging between €290,000 for a one bed-room apartment to €840,000 for a seventh floor penthouse suite in Spencer Dock.

So, everything is all right after all with the Celtic Tiger. Property prices are still soaring. The builders and developers can rest easy in their beds, and we can all go to sleep content in the knowledge that prices are still rising, and the 50,000 people on the housing list will go without for another while.

Over 400 two- and three-bedroom apartments, out of the first tranche of 600 units, with a sales value of £150 million, were snapped up in a trice, and the selling agents, Hooke and MacDonald, gloated that a further £100m in sales would be booked within another week. In fact, developers Treasury Holdings have decided that because of the scale of demand, they will continue selling all the apartments in this first residential block to be built on the 51-acre site.

Legal obligations?

d just where does that leave the developers on their legal obligations, since last year, to provide 20% of all housing development for social and affordable housing?

Dublin City Council spent many hours last year debating the niceties of what would be the proportion, within the 20% allocation, of 'social' as opposed to 'affordable': what fraction of the 20% should be bought at affordable prices, and what fraction should be available to people on the housing list.

Managing Director of the agents, Ken Macdonald, happily announced that he projected a rent of €2,000 a month on a two-bedroom €440,000 show apartment.

Christy Burke wants to know whether, at these sort of rents and prices, developers are intending to meet their legal obligations to provide social and affordable housing for people on the housing list. "I fear greatly that the government, under pressure from their friends amongst the builders and developers, are going to retract the scheme altogether," he said.

Christy has put down a motion for the next meeting of the council asking the Dublin Docks Development Authority (DDDA) just what are their plans to meet the 20% social and affordable housing provision in this €2 billion development.

The Development

The Spencer Dock Development is the largest single building project ever seen in Dublin - dwarfing the Temple Bar redevelopment and the IFSC. The 600 apartments, all of which are to be sold in the first tranche, are the initial stage of 3,000 apartments, along with over 1 million sq feet of shops, offices, and a leisure centre, a gym, a pool a crêche and a mile-long linear park along the Royal Canal.

The state's contribution to enhance the value of these apartments is an underground metro station and/or Luas stop, and a directly accessible route to the South Side across the new Calatrava Bridge at Macken Street.

Ironically, for those who wait on the housing list, the apartments are 'particularly designed to appeal to young families', with a wide range of family friendly facilities. The complex will include a children's playroom and function rooms, as well as proposed tennis court and a landscaped internal courtyard.

The apartments will also have dry cleaning pick-up and drop off services, a post room for each block, storage facilities and two car cleaning bays in the car-park "so that day-to-day living needs of families are not compromised by the urban environment".

Apart from the crêche, the independently run gym and pool, there will be hotels and educational facilities.

What fraction of the 20 penthouses will be allocated to social and affordable housing? These apartments will have large roof gardens, rooftop conservatories, two double bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms, tiled in muted neutrals, and a family bathroom and kitchen, lounge and dining room and a separate laundry area.

Or are the social and affordable category waiting for the Development of the next block, appropriately named 'Britain House', so they can rub shoulders with U2, in their 60 metre high two-story penthouse suite at the top, which was allocated to the band in compensation for the loss of their studio 'hut' on Hanover Quay?

Christy's questions

Just what are the Dublin Dockland Development Authority's plans for providing the social and affordable housing in this massive housing development? Are the people on social and affordable housing provision going to be accommodated in a separate block, maybe round the back, maybe without access to the same facilities, or same 'clean urban environment'? The essence of the social and affordable housing scheme was precisely that housing for all should be integrated: to begin to break down the them and us, two-tier, housing system that the development of the flat complexes in the Inner City has created.

Where is social integration in the Spencer Dock Development? Why hasn't provision been made from the outset, at the time of the very first sales of apartments, given the dire needs of many on the housing list?

Or are the developers attempting the squeeze out of what to them is a quite unacceptable arrangement to accept affordable prices for property which commands such exorbitant returns and profits.

We await the response to Christy's motion in Dublin Council and his letter of inquiry to the DDDA.