Eoin Ó Broin
Question:1251. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the status of the delivery of affordable cost-rental homes on St. Michael’s Estate, Inchicore, Dublin 8. [4480/20]
View answerWednesday, 13 May 2020
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The Dublin City Council-owned land at Emmet Road, Inchicore, which is largely comprised of the former St Michael’s Estate, is a Cost Rental ‘pathfinder’ pilot development. Cost Rental is housing where rents are charged at a level to cover the cost of delivering, managing and maintaining the homes only. It is not designed to replace traditional social housing provision for low-income households, which remains a priority for the Government. Cost Rental is a new tenure option for Ireland, and is one of several schemes which my Department is pursuing to deliver on the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan and ultimately provide more affordable housing.
Dublin City Council has estimated that the Emmet Road site can accommodate 484 homes in a high quality mixed-tenure development. It is envisaged that 375 of the homes will be Cost Rental, with the remaining homes reserved for social housing. Taken together with an adjacent development of integrated social housing for older people, the overall tenure mix for the area will be 30% social and 70% Cost Rental. Initial scoping suggests the Cost Rental and social housing units would both be a mixture of different apartment sizes as follows:
- 72 studio apartments (all Cost Rental)
- 128 one-bedroom apartments (108 Cost Rental, 20 social)
- 210 two-bedroom apartments (177 Cost Rental, 33 social)
- 74 three-bedroom apartments (18 Cost Rental, 56 social)
A dedicated Dublin City Council (DCC) project manager and project team are in place to move the project forward, and a Development Framework Plan has been completed by architects on behalf of DCC. The Council is in the process of developing a Capital Works Management Framework application for the social housing element of the development, and will submit this to my Department. After undertaking a public procurement exercise in late 2019, DCC has just appointed an architect-led integrated design team. This team will now work with the Council to bring forward a detailed design of the development and progress these plans through the planning stage.