In Ballymun, plans called for developers to build high-density private homes – but large swathes of land remain vacant

When councillors agreed a local area plan for Ballymun in 2017, it included a list of 31 vacant sites.

Most of those, the plan said, should be built out with private homes. Seven years on, many of those sites are still empty.

One site across the road from the Metro Hotel has been developed with student housing, and another four have been built out by the Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance.

Dublin City Council has started work on plans to develop social and affordable housing on 11 sites. Private development has not taken off.

That is largely because of planning rules requiring high-density development, says Andrew Montague, a community planner and author of the “Ballymun: a Brighter Future” report.

Apartments are expensive to build and in an area where existing houses cost less than the price of building a new apartment, the sums don’t add up, says Montague, who is also a former Labour councillor.

“It doesn’t make sense in Ballymun and in lots of other places,” he says. “It’s a massive flaw in the national planning framework.”

Councillors in Ballymun did also refuse a proposal from a private developer a few years ago, concerned that the homes cost way more than locals could afford.

Most commentators say the solution – if Dublin City Council’s aim is to have more private homes mixed in with the social homes in the area – is for the council to develop more affordable-purchase housing.

Some look to be on the way.

In July, Dublin City Council ran a public consultation on plans for 138 affordable-purchase homes at Balbutcher Lane in Ballymun – and it is working on proposals for others too.

Revisiting the plan

The regeneration of Ballymun, launched in 1997, had a vision to replace high-rise towers with lower-rise social housing and to bring in private development to create a community with a mix of tenants and homeowners.

Between 1998 and 2017, around 1,350 private homes were built in the area, with private investment, says the Ballymun Local Area Plan (LAP.)

At the time of the LAP, 29 percent of homes in Ballymun were owner-occupied while the average across Dublin was 52 percent. All but one electoral district in Ballymun was classed as disadvantaged.

The LAP set out a goal of growing the proportion of homeowners in Ballymun. It commits “to provide a choice of tenure options and house types, promoting social inclusion and integration”.

Not everyone agrees that increasing the proportion of homeowners is vital to sustainable communities, but that was the plan.

Most new housing would be private, says the plan, including rentals, student housing and affordable-purchase housing. It said a small number of social homes would be delivered through Part V, the provision that means a slice of homes in bigger private estates goes to social housing.

Meanwhile,the LAP envisages buildings of four to six storeys of mixed-use development along Ballymun’s Main Street.

The lifetime of the Ballymun LAP, which was drawn up in 2017, was extended for another five years in 2022 – and so it is in place until 2027.

Yet, Montague says, the private housing it envisages mostly isn’t viable in Ballymun under the current system.

“The planning system is only allowing the most expensive form of development in too many locations,” he says. “The idea is that compact living will reduce commuting, but because it is restricting supply it is increasing commuting.”

Architect and housing commentator Mel Reynolds says high-rise residential developments are commercially viable in the city centre and in affluent areas. But they are unlikely to be viable in other parts of the city, he says.

“High density only works when you have high prices and at the top of the cycle,” he says.

The Department of Housing should allow lower density development in lower-income areas to get things moving, he says. “Do you want a lower density development or to grow spuds for the next 30 years?”

Terraced housing with small backyards – like the traditional housing in Stoneybatter – can achieve surprising levels of density without going high-rise, says Reynolds.

He points to low-rise, high-density social housing built by Norwich City Council in the United Kingdom.

The Department of Housing’s 2018 planning guidelines called for taller and denser development in areas like Ballymun with good public transport links.

This year, those were updated, and the current guidelines now say that a minimum of 50 dwellings per hectare should be delivered in areas within 1 km of light rail stations.

“In order to maximise inner city and town centre population growth, there should, in principle, be no upper limit on the number of dwellings that may be provided within any town or city centre site, subject to the following safeguards,” say the guidelines.

Because Ballymun is considered a key urban district, planners do require higher density on its Main Street, says Hugh Brennan, the CEO of the Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance.

Cost rental might be viable at those heights, he says, because that is heavily subsidised.

Rolling out the affordable?

Dublin City Council is pushing ahead with some plans for social and affordable housing.

A tally of proposals in its July housing update shows well over 1,000 homes in the pipeline, but at various stages.

Among them, 317 affordable-purchase homes, 366 social homes through the public-private partnership scheme, and 279 cost-rental homes from Tuath Housing.

Social Democrats Councillor Mary Callaghan says she thinks that affordable-purchase schemes are the way to go for Ballymun.

The council is pursuing some itself, says Callaghan. Like 227 affordable purchase homes on two sites at Balbutcher and Sillogue, according to its housing update.

She can’t understand why none of those are on site yet.  “It’s excruciating from a councillor’s point of view,” she says. “What is the delay?”

Callaghan says that a few years ago, a private developer proposed some homes on council-owned land in Ballymun.

But councillors didn’t back the plan at the time to give the developer the land, because the homes were going to be too expensive for local people to buy, she says.

They figured that, once built, the homes would likely be sold in a block to an investment fund, she says.

Fianna Fáil Councillor Keith Connolly says the homes were high-spec. More modest development would do better in Ballymun, he said.

Meanwhile, Brennan of the Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance, says he wonders if the mixed-use developments envisaged in the plan for Ballymun’s Main Street are viable.

Look at the vacant commercial units already there, he says.

Public money would likely be needed if the council wants mixed-use high-rise on that thoroughfare, says Reynolds, the architect.

Brennan says it could be done alongside cost-rental homes, which are being heavily subsidised.

As Montague, the community planner, sees it, the area still needs more people on higher incomes to bring in the shops that people want to see.

That could be done with more affordable-purchase homes, he says. “It’s a good fit for Ballymun.”