In Donabate, residents want developers to finally finish building their estates, and hand them over to the council 

Linda Nugent was walking her terrier Hiro through The Paddocks housing estate in Donabate on Saturday morning.

“Come on, we’re not going home,” she told Hiro. “You’re getting a walk.”

She paused for a moment to look at a footpath by the large green that separates the small street leading into The Paddocks from Somerton, its neighbouring estate.

The path ends as soon as it reaches the green. There’s a muddy triangle after it stops, pointing in the direction of Somerton.

A “desire line”, Nugent said – an informal trail made by feet over time. “But why isn’t there a path there?”

This half-finished walkway doesn’t have a ramped footpath to direct pedestrians across the street.

Even though a map from developer Aljaco Limited submitted in 2018, as part of a planning application for six more houses, indicates that there would be one.

There is another footpath on the opposite end of the green. But it doesn’t link up to the half-finished path with its “desire line”, instead curving off onto the residential street.

Awkward and incomplete, the lack of a real path a major inconvenience for wheelchair users and people pushing prams, she says. “You’re going to have to go on this mud.”

That path should’ve been completed by now, she said.

As she walks around the green and smaller grassy areas scattered throughout the neighbourhood, she points to fences that border with nearby estates under construction.

There are supposed to be hedges there, she says. “Hedgehogs have nowhere to go because a lot of the hedges were taken out.”

Eventually, Fingal County Council is expected to take charge of the estate.

It can’t do that until Aljaco Limited has built all the infrastructure and applied to the council to take it over, says Labour Councillor Corina Johnston. “But the estate has been left unfinished.”

She has had complaints from estates all around Donabate where residents are frustratedly waiting for the developers to finish so that the council can take over its management, she says. “It’s concerning that this is almost becoming widespread.”

There needs to be a mechanism in place to deter developers from failing to finish work on a housing estate, she says.

Aljaco Ltd did not respond when asked why it has yet to carry out the remaining work on its estate, and whether there was a timeline for the completion of its paths, a promised playground and open spaces.

A spokesperson for Fingal County Council did not respond when asked if it has been engaging with the developer to get these amenities done.

Unfinished

Developer Aljaco Limited was granted planning permission to build 43 homes at The Paddocks housing estate in August 2016.

Among the planning conditions was a request to consider the inclusion of a playground, and to clearly indicate which parts of the estate the council would eventually take in charge.

Aljaco Limited got permission in January 2019 to add four more houses. An Bord Pleanála’s order said that they had to add a children’s play area.

More than five years later, the houses have been built. But Aljaco Limited hasn’t yet followed up with all the amenities.

As Nugent walked around the neighbourhood on Saturday, the playground had yet to be delivered.

People started moving into the estate in late 2019 and she has been living here three years, she says. “It’ll be my fourth Christmas now, and you just get tired of things being left unfinished.”

In mid-September, residents showed Social Democrats Councillor Joan Hopkins around the estate.

They also showed her examples of the unfinishedness of it, she says, like missing trees that had been promised. “Some of the neighbours had started to plant their own ones.”

Street lights have been installed too close to driveways and footpaths were missing, she says. “Dished kerbs were not done. It was just really a badly finished job.”

The residents were having trouble interacting with the developer Aljaco Limited, she says. “You see that all over the place.”

Hopkins has been trying to organise a meeting between residents and the council, she says. “We’re waiting for a date for that to happen.”

Taking in charge

Eventually, the council is supposed to take the estate in charge, says Johnston, the Labour councillor.

But the developer has to ask once it has finished all of the planned work on an estate, she says. “The council has to wait until the developer contacts them, submits a request for the development to be taken in charge.”

At The Paddocks, there are outstanding issues around landscaping and footpaths, she says. So, “once they do submit that request, it could take a number of years as well. It’s very frustrating.”

Johnston says she has been inundated with similar complaints from around the Donabate area where developers haven’t completed estates or applied for the estates to be taken in charge.

The only alternative is for residents to hold a plebiscite, agreeing to get the council to step in, she says. “And that process is also very timely.”

If an estate isn’t handed over, the council are limited in what they can do to help, she says. “They can’t cut the grass, or maintain the development.”

It’s becoming a bigger and bigger issue, she says.

As she sees it, if a developer hasn’t asked the council to assume charge of existing estates, that should be taken into consideration for any future planning applications, she says. “That’s what needs to happen. They are being let off the hook.”

Hopkins, the Social Democrats councillor, says the council isn’t tough enough on developers. “There’s not enough enforcement.”

Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan had tried to put an amendment into the Planning Bill, which would impose a time limit on when a developer has to hand an estate over to the council, she says.

“That was rejected by the Minister, so we’re left in this situation,” Hopkins says.

The council should be prepared for cases either where the developer cannot or will not carry out the necessary works, she says.

“They should use the bond that they’ve collected from the developer to finish the works themselves and take it over,” she says.