In Fingal, council moves to step in and finish estates developers have left in limbo

On a foggy Saturday morning in November, Linda Nugent took her dog down the slim footpath on the Portrane Road.

She was en route to the village centre. But, just one hundred metres after passing Ballisk House, the old credit union, she paused to look at a new block of 14 flats across the street.

That’s Cobbe Court, she said. “It’s an estate that has been left hazardous really.”

It had a footpath leading out. But as soon as this walkway reached the wall separating the apartments from the Portrane Road, its concrete surface became gravel and weeds.

Cobbe Court was left without these footpaths, she said as she observed the same on the other side of the entrance. “The finish there is really poor.”

Nugent had just come from her own housing estate, the Paddocks, which was similarly left incomplete by its developer, Aljaco Ltd.

It had half-finished footpaths, and dished kerbs that were set out in the developer’s plans but never completed.

Some residents had even taken to planting trees on the green when it didn’t appear anyone else was going to get that done.

Cobbe Court, like the Paddocks, is an estate that Fingal County Council is due to “take in charge”, taking over responsibility for – and maintaining – the roads, footpaths, sewers, lighting and other bits of the public realm.

But the council can’t take an estate in charge until the developer completes it, and all the pieces the council is to take responsibility for are up to standard.

Across the county, there are estates the developer seems to have stopped working on, but that aren’t done enough for the council to be willing to take them in charge yet. “There are developments where the developers have walked off the pitch,” Nugent says.

Now, the council, in a bid to speed things along at such estates, has issued a tender worth an estimated €2 million, for engineering consultants to help get estates completed so they’re ready for the council to take them in charge.

This is to cover cases where a builder has either gone out of business, a council spokesperson said Wednesday, “or where the Council took the bond due to lack of progress by the Builder in bringing the estate to the taking in charge standard”.

Before a developer starts their work, they must put up a bond related to the cost of bringing an estate up to the taking-in-charge standard, according to a council document. But should the developer fail to finish the required work, the council will keep as much of that security as necessary to cover any outstanding works.

Making a place liveable

Fingal’s plan to speed up the completion of some estates stuck in limbo was confirmed in January when Labour Councillor John Walsh queried the status of Collegewood, in Castleknock.

He had been making representations on the behalf of Collegewood for a few years, Walsh said Monday. “Because the taking-in-charge of it was badly needed. Much of it is a snag list around footpaths and roads.”

In response to a query from Walsh, on 14 January, council senior engineer Colin Gallagher said that its Procurement Section would publish the tender for consulting engineers.

Once that was sorted, the council would start working on developments where they had received bond payments, including Collegewood, Gallagher said. “It is intended that a number of similar estates will be bundled together.”

The consulting engineers would snag estates, and develop a bill of quantities and procurement documents, like those covering health and safety, he said.

“The council will then procure a contractor to carry out the works which the consulting engineers will supervise to ensure that the works are to the TIC [taking-in-charge] standards,” he said.

On 27 January, the council published the tender, estimating its value at €2 million, and seeking services including those for engineering design, civil engineering, mechanical and electrical, construction, sewer and landscaping.

It is a welcome step, Walsh said. “Because the number of estates in Dublin 15 that need to be taken in charge, and the framework for consulting engineers, and grouping a number of those estates together should significantly expedite the process.”

The problem has fundamentally been because Fingal is seeing a great deal of housing development at the moment, Walsh said.

But that is without decent infrastructure or amenities being provided at the same time, he said. “Of course, we need new housing, but people also need playgrounds, and at a most basic level, bike sheds, bin sheds, and essential structures.”

Those make a place liveable, he said. “But unfortunately in some estates, that hasn’t happened.”

Plebiscites

In Donabate, Labour Councillor Corina Johnston has been working with a lot of residents who have been impatiently waiting on someone to get their estates fully developed, she says.

Colin Gallagher, the senior engineer in the council’s Planning and Strategic Infrastructure department told her on 12 December that the council hadn’t yet received a request to take charge of Cobbe Court, she says.

Before the developer can hand over the estate, it needs to bring it up to standard, Johnston said Saturday. “One of the issues with lighting was rectified. But the main issue is the footpath. It’s untidy and messy looking.”

Often, the only recourse for residents in such cases is a plebiscite, in which they vote to request that the council take charge if the estate is not yet up to standard, she said.

That’s happening in a lot of places now, she said. “The Paddocks have submitted a plebiscite. It’s almost becoming common practice.”

Alongside the Paddocks, residents in Weston Park, an estate in Oldtown, had organised a plebiscite, she said. “It’s a very timely process.”

At the meeting of the council’s Balbriggan/Rush-Lusk/Swords area committee on 16 January, Johnston asked council managers to confirm if it could carry out the outstanding works there.

Fingal’s Planning Department was working on a number of similar estates in the Swords/Balbriggan area, all of which were not yet up to standard, Gallagher said. “In the case of Weston Park, the bond has been sequestered.”

But, as the works needed were substantial in the Oldtown estate, these works would have to be tendered out and a contractor procured, he said.

It’s unacceptable that the council has had to go to this length to get works like these done, Johnston said.

“Really, we have to look at this from a policy perspective,” she said. “If a developer reneges and doesn’t finish the estate, I think when it comes to further planning applications submitted, that needs to be taken into consideration.”

Some progress

Last year, Fingal County Council took in charge 27 estates, a council spokesperson said Wednesday. “That was a record figure.”

More recently, at the Blanchardstown-Mulhuddart/Castleknock/Ongar Area Committee meeting on 6 February, Marta Durek, a graduate parks superintendent, said it was also nearly ready to take charge of the Windmill estate in Coolmine.

Windmill has faced a spate of issues, with its green being a frequent site for bonfires, while its playground has also fallen prey to people vandalising its equipment.

Its playground is among the 52 that council has yet to take charge of across the county, according to a 13 January report by Matthew McAleese, the council’s director of Planning and Strategic Infrastructure.

But Durek said last week that the developer, Kimpton Vale Ltd, was liaising with the council to get the necessary works done, so the council can step in. “We’re trying to establish a date when all works are completed.”

Tree pits have been dug to plant new trees, she said. “Then all the works are scheduled in relation to the replacement of the surface in the playground, removal of all the graffiti, fixing the gates and all additional works that are required to be done.”

The developer estimates that those works will be finished within two months, she said.