In Rathmines, plans progress for primary-care centre and housing

All was quiet down at the bring centre behind Rathmines College as the clock on the tower struck noon on Tuesday.

A couple of pedestrians entered the old depot through the laneway cluttered with bins and crates.

Somebody had fixed a site notice at the blue gates at Gulistan Place. The Health Service Executive (HSE) intends to apply for permission to build a long-awaited primary health care centre at the depot, it says.

It submitted its application to Dublin City Council on 1 August. It proposes demolishing four old buildings on the site, behind the rows of cottages on Gulistan Terrace.

Among the new features in the proposed centre, the HSE lists physiotherapy and paediatric gyms, dining rooms, an older person’s day-care centre, and a therapeutic garden courtyard across 0.3 ha within the depot.

It’s good to have finally reached the stage where the HSE has put in planning to build the centre here, said Labour Councillor Dermot Lacey on Monday evening. “This has been going on for nearly 20 years.”

Submitting the application while councillors are on their summer recess was far from impressive, however, Lacey said. “It was a serious misjudgement of the right thing to do.”

The proposed primary care centre is only one aspect of the depot’s redevelopment, as the council also intends to build 148 homes on the site, as well as a community centre and civic plaza, a spokesperson for the council said on Tuesday.

Dublin City Council appointed the approved housing body Clúid to develop these homes, which consist of age-friendly, “general needs”, and cost-rental accommodation, they said.

The council is preparing its Part 8 planning application at the moment – meaning the council will apply to itself for permission, with councillors voting on it – and aims to lodge this “later this year”, the spokesperson said.

It would have been better if the HSE and council had put in their applications to deliver on their respective pieces of the overall project at the same time, Lacey said. 

“It would just mean that people were seeing two sets of plans on the table and looking at the entirety of the site,” he says. 

Not a fully co-ordinated effort

Back in April 2021, the council published its draft masterplan for the Gulistan depot site.

Alongside the primary-care centre, the document shows a civic space, age-friendly and affordable housing, and a building for community use.

This planned new centre is a much-needed facility for Rathmines, says Ciaran McGahon, a local architect and member of Rathmines Initiative. “It’s a very good and positive thing to provide.”

Rathmines currently is serviced by a health centre that the HSE operates out of a unit nearby in the Swan Shopping Centre, which isn’t up to the standard of what the executive is now proposing.

But the patience of local councillors was wearing thin as they waited on the HSE to get a move on upgrading its health facilities in the suburban town.

At the start of the year, councillors on the South East Area Committee were receiving a lot of emails from locals asking for progress, Green Party Councillor Hazel Chu said at the area committee on 15 January. 

“This is something that has been hanging over the Gulistan residents for quite a while,” Chu said.

They were still waiting on timelines for the entire project, not only the health-care centre, but also for the housing side too, she said.

On 19 May, members of Rathmines Initiative met with Lacey, the council’s Housing Department, and Clúid to discuss the development, according to minutes kept by the local initiative group.

The Gulistan residents supported the development, but wanted the HSE and Clúid to “confer and collaborate” to make sure their work was co-ordinated and their respective planning applications were being made at the same time, the minutes show.

At that meeting, representatives from the council and Clúid made a presentation, showing their plans for the 148 homes, consisting of 110 one-bedroom apartments and 38 two-bedrooms, according to a presentation published on Rathmines Initiative’s website.

The homes would be in two blocks, ranging from two to seven storeys tall, the presentation shows.

That presentation also showed the new civic plaza as well as a 344sqm cultural facility in the depot’s existing coach house.

Among the features in this new community centre were a pair of artists’ studios or workspaces on the ground floor, while the first floor could also serve a similar purpose or act as a gallery space, the presentation shows.

But, while the HSE submitted their application less than two weeks ago, the council is still a bit behind.

The council is currently preparing a Part 8 planning application for the housing development and community facilities, a spokesperson for the council said on Tuesday. This “will be lodged later this year once finalised.”

Access

At the Rathmines Initiative meeting with members of the council and Clúid in May, locals also questioned the suitability of the Gulistan depot as a site for a Primary Care Centre, minutes from the meeting show.

This was because there was “relatively poor access” to the proposed centre by both car and public transport compared to other centres, the minutes show.

The HSE primary care centre would employ about 100 staff, and perhaps 140 to 160 patients would visit it per day, a mobility management report submitted with the planning application says.

Vehicular access into the depot and the primary care centre is only possible via Gulistan Terrace, a quiet residential street to the east of the site. This same route will be the vehicular access for the primary care centre, the report says.  

“Vehicle access is proposed to be limited to emergency vehicles, refuse trucks, maintenance vehicles and some allowance for set-down for infirmed or mobility impaired patients,” it says. 

The plan is for a basement car park providing 36 car parking spaces and 40 bike-parking spaces for staff. It envisions two  “set down spaces”, one accessible parking bay, an ambulance set-down, and 12 bike-parking spaces in the front of the building.

“Patients will be encouraged to travel to the Primary Care Centre by public transport, bicycle or on foot,” it says.

Pedestrians can get into the site via the busier Lower Rathmines Road on the west. The current entryway is a cluttered laneway between the town hall and a hairdressers.

On Tuesday, at midday, only one man ventured into the bring centre using that passage, weaving around the clutter of bins and crates.

Parker Hill, an angular side street, connecting the Rathmines Road to the depot is one possible solution.

Members of Rathmines Initiative proposed, at the May meeting, that the council purchase a property down this laneway in order to ease access, the minutes show.

In addition to the route from Rathmines Road into the site past Rathmines College, the mobility report mentions “a future link that will provide a second pedestrian and cycle link to Rathmines to the north”. 

And it includes a map that appears to show that link going via Parker Hill.

The current limited access is a restriction, said McGahon of Rathmines Initiative, on Tuesday morning. “But it wouldn’t be a deal-breaker considering there isn’t another site currently available.”