Plans for almost 400 homes in Bluebell to go out to public consultation

Plans for almost 400 homes in Bluebell next to the Grand Canal are to go out to public consultation shortly, Dublin city councillors were told last week.

The 382 homes in the development, known as Bluebell Waterways, would be split between 233 cost-rental apartments, and 149 social homes.

One of the big aims of the designs is to give people living in the community greater access to the canal, said Richard Doorly, a director of Henry J. Lyons architects.

“There’s very little engagement with the canal at the moment,” he said at a meeting on 19 February for the South Central Area.

Hazel De Nortúin, a People Before Project councillor, said the project – the fourth in the city involving a partnership between the council and the state’s Land Development Agency (LDA) – had better early-stage consultation with locals than previous schemes.

Keeping that up is going to be important, she said. The LDA is going to have such an influence in the neighbourhood in coming years, said De Nortúin.

The LDA has bought the big Royal Liver site on the Naas Road, and is looking to redevelop part of the Inchicore Railway Works in the future also, she said. “So that’s a huge effect they’re going to be able to push forward in the area.”

The phasing

The presentation given to councillors was to tell them that officials are to put the plans formally out to public consultation, the next official step in the planning process for public projects known as “Part 8”.

After that, council officials look at the submissions, and compile a report on those and their responses – before putting final plans to the full council for a vote.

Doorly, of Henry J. Lyons, said the project is to be built in two phases to accommodate those who are living in maisonettes on the site at the moment.

In phase one, those living in the maisonettes will stay put during the construction of 248 homes, a mix of social and cost-rental, he said.

The maisonette residents, and people living nearby in La Touche Court, will be prioritised for these new social homes, the presentation to councillors said.

Once they have moved over, the maisonettes will be knocked and the second and final phase of homes built out, said Doorly.

Daithí Doolan, a Sinn Féin councillor, said it was good to see social housing planned for the site.

The state also needs to make sure the cost-rental homes in the development are affordable, he said. “We need to make sure that the economic model delivers affordable housing.”

Cost-rental homes in Dublin are for households with incomes above the threshold for social housing, but below €66,000 a year. Rents are set to cover construction, management, and maintenance over 40 years.

Department of Housing officials have expressed concern that the rising costs of delivering cost-rental homes means they are only affordable to those at the higher end of that income bracket.

Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act last year showed that officials were working on guidance for cost-rental providers to make sure they offer homes to those on lower as well as higher incomes, and to monitor with anonymous data who gets the homes.

They have also been considering whether the minister may introduce rules in law to direct providers to prioritise particularly vulnerable cohorts, the documents showed.

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said earlier this month that the department is currently finalising draft guidance for cost-rental providers on the advertising, assessment, and allocation of cost-rental homes.

“As the Cost Rental sector grows in scale and a greater range of providers become involved, the Department is working to implement mandatory reporting by landlords through new secondary legislation,” they said.

Opening it up

“We want the community to be able to come into the lands and access the canal,” said Doorly, of Henry J. Lyons architects, as he ran through the designs at the meeting.

Stretching along the western edge of the site would be a linear park for pedestrians and cyclists connecting to the Grand Canal, and new allotments, he said.

Designs also show three community spaces, spread through the site – rather than clustered.

The Bungalow, a key local community hub, for example, would be run out of a space that fronts onto the canal, with homes above. There’s also a community space in the middle of the site, and one to the south on Bluebell Road, said Doorly.

Alan Sherry, the council local area manager for Ballyfermot/Drimnagh, said the idea behind the dispersed community spaces is to spread out activity and make it vibrant across the development.

“Key to this is passive surveillance for the security of the area,” Sherry said.

The project has way over the required community space for this kind of development, said Sherry – just shy of 9 percent, rather than 5 percent.

But the next step in making sure the spaces work is for the local community to give more detail on current community uses, he said.

Architects need to know what groups use spaces at the moment, how many, and how numbers may grow, he says. “Because there’s a piece now around design.”