Council Briefs: Sign-off on new Drimnagh Library, increasing developer levies, and borrowing for the Fruit and Veg Market

Nod for Drimnagh Library

Councillors granted planning permission for the new council library in Drimnagh at the March monthly meeting of Dublin City Council on Monday.

Next step is to procure a design team, said a report from the council’s chief executive, Richard Shakespeare. “We anticipate that construction will start on site in 2026.”

Plans show a library that is 841sqm, with a big library space and events space on the ground floor, and a reading and meeting room upstairs.

A first-floor glazed bridge would link the library building to the existing Ard Scoil Éanna House, to connect up the complex.

Independents 4 Change Councillor Pat Dunne said local residents had campaigned for this for many years. It was great that the council bought the school building when the opportunity came up, he said.

But, Dunne said the building is in a dilapidated state. “I’m asking, can we do something with it, in the short term? To give people confidence that things are moving along.”

The council will look at that and see if it can improve the facade, said Anthony Flynn, an assistant chief executive, at the meeting.

Nudging up development levies

At Monday’s monthly meeting, Dublin city councillors also agreed to nudge up the rate for levies paid by developers when they’re building projects in the city.

About 8 percent of funding for Dublin City Council’s “capital” projects – big things it builds, mostly – over the next three years is forecast to come from development levies. That’s about €257 million during that period.

Councillors voted Monday to increase the levy per square metre built by 2.93 percent, in line with inflation. Assistant Chief Executive Anthony Flynn’s report on the increase doesn’t estimate how many millions more that would bring in for capital projects.

In April 2023, the government waived development levies for developers, making the move, they said, as a way to boost the viability of housing projects.

In April last year, the government extended the waiver to cover homes where work has started before the end of 2024.

That was the last update, said a Department of Housing spokesperson. Apparently meaning that since the end of 2024, developers have to pay again.

During the period when developers did not have to pay, the Department of Housing paid local authorities instead, to make sure they didn’t lose out on the revenue.

At Monday’s council meeting, there were two threads of debate that spun out from the discussion on whether to raise the rate of the development levies.

One was around whether increasing levies would harm home-building and affordability. The other was around where in the city the council spends the funding raised through levies.

Michael Pidgeon, a Green Party councillor, said he would reluctantly support the increase. But, as he sees it, “it’s essentially a tax on new homes”.

It adds to construction costs, he said, and councillors should look at refining how they set rates of development levies the next time they have to draw up a scheme.

“There’s a lot more work to be done here,” he said.

There’s already a higher per square metre levy on “industrial/commercial” projects than on residential ones.

Councillors should make the rate for industrial/commercial even higher compared to residential levies, Pidgeon said.

He also renewed the pitch he and other Green Party councillors made in 2022 to remove an exemption that means developers don’t have to pay the levy on car parking spaces.

Dunne, the Independents 4 Change councillor, said he didn’t agree that reducing development levies would lead to more affordable homes.

“It is naive to suggest that by reducing development levies, that developers would have a reduced cost for the home buyer,” he said. “They would pocket the difference.”

Development levies have been good in terms of capital projects they help to fund, Dunne said.

Catherine Stocker, a Social Democrats councillor, said she finds what the council does with funds raised via development levies to be opaque. She wants to better understand which areas they are allocated to, she said.

“I’m sure it is being used for what it is meant to be, but there is no transparency across that,” Stocker said.

A report in January 2023 to the council’s finance committee did give a breakdown at that time, showing most of the development contributions going to the south-east of the city.

Sinn Féin Councillor Séamas McGrattan said at the time that the flipside of that is that other funding streams may be allocated in greater proportions to other areas – so the wider context is important, he said.

At Monday’s meeting, Conor Reddy, a People Before Profit councillor, said there is currently loads of development in his area in the north of the city.

“But I don’t think it is a good idea that we do ringfence development contributions,” he said. If an area is hot for development right now, they might not be into the future, he said.

McGrattan, of Sinn Féin, asked what the level of arrears is for development levies. “And what’s the repercussions for those who don’t pay?”

Anthony Flynn, an assistant chief executive at the council, said he wasn’t totally sure how much was outstanding. He would check and get back, he said.

Fruit and Veg Market

Councillors agreed to borrow up to €30 million over four years to renovate the Smithfield Fruit and Veg markets. The Department of Housing also has to approve the borrowing.

The plan is for the council to pay back the loan over 25 years, funding that from rental income from the markets, car parking fees from the Markets Car Park, and a profit share once the market is up and running, said a report to councillors.

Ray McAdam, a Fine Gael councillor, said that all the borrowing that the council is planning – including this €30 million – is significant. “And somewhat worrying in my view.”

But it also underscores the need for the central government to come to work with the council to ensure that funding is in place to build all the projects in the capital programme, he said.

Councillors stressed that they want the market not to have just big commercial players, but smaller food producers and entrepreneurs.

Sinn Féin Councillor Janice Boylan said it will only work if the community around it can access it. “And that’s through affordability.”

When the council tenders for an operator, it needs to keep that in mind, she said.

Independent Councillor Cieran Perry said he really welcomed the progress and plan. It wasn’t ideal that the market would be privately run, he said. “But being a realist, I accept the proposal as it stands.”

Especially as the operator will work for the council, and the council will control the market, he said.

Green Party Councillor Janet Horner said the target of opening in Q3 2027 is one that councillors would be delighted to hold to.

She asked Anthony Flynn, an assistant chief executive at the council, to put on record that the ethos of the market will be a community market, not reduced to a tourist attraction.

“Not to be prioritising multinational corporations who might be like bidding for the operations contract,” she said, “but to be looking at how we can further that community-wealth building concept that we have discussed a lot throughout the council.”

The car park revenue will help to service the loan and that’s fine in the short-term, she said. “But a surface level car park should not be the long-term usage there.”

Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty said that the fact that this market is finally moving along is brilliant. “But I am reminded of the fact that the Iveagh Markets in my own area is still at a standstill.”

At the meeting, he read from a written response from a council manager which said that works were still underway to stabilise the Iveagh Markets building.

It also said that legal proceedings haven’t been responded to since April 2024, he said.

And that until legal proceedings are over, nobody can get that market back open again, said Moriarty.