Residents of Basin Street flats fear their long-promised redevelopment is now in limbo

As Amy Carroll walks her son back from school in the warm mid-afternoon on Tuesday, he jumps up on the wall that runs next to the football pitch outside Basin Street Flats.

“I told you, you’re not allowed up there,” she tells him. “It’s dangerous.”

Her son climbs down and she gestures to the broken concrete. “Look at the state of it,” she said.

There has been no investment in the area for as long as she can remember, Carroll says. “Just look at the pitch itself, it’s awful. That’s what young people have here.”

She says she is afraid to even let her son outside in the evenings because scrambler bikes run wild.

Residents of the Basin Street flats had thought that change was coming soon. 

Some have already been “decanted”, moved out for a while, so that a massive redevelopment of this old complex in the Liberties – voted through by councillors in February – could finally get under way.

But the project was among the five bundles of projects expected to be funded in the coming years under the Social Housing Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme.

Earlier this month, the Department of Housing said that the route for funding the homes – long criticised as a costly and slow model – was to be scrapped for the next bundle, known as Bundle 3. Costs had come back as high as €1.2 million per home for construction and maintenance over 25 years.

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing has said that it is reviewing, along with the National Development Finance Agency, the later bundles – Bundles 4 to 7 – also. 

“To determine the most appropriate procurement and delivery strategy in order to ensure the most efficient and effective use of the available public resources,” they said.

The Basin Street flats project was in Bundle 5.

The retreat from the PPP model has hurt Basin Street in particular, because Basin Street is different to all the other sites, says Darragh Moriarty, a Labour councillor for the area. 

PPPs are usually used for empty sites, he said, like the Forbes Lane depot around the corner. “There's nobody living in that place.”

But Basin Street, he said, is a “living, breathing community”.

Living, breathing community

As news circulated that PPPs were on the out, a wave of disappointment spread through the community, said resident and community activist Damien Farrell by phone on Tuesday.

“People feel like they’re just left in limbo now,” Farrell says.

It’s cruel on people, said Frank Gibbons, chair of the residents association, in the living room of his ground-floor flat on Tuesday. 

“They were here doing surveys, checking drains, had drones in the air, there were archaeologists, all that sort of thing,” he says.

The council had even started to move some tenants out, he says, but now, that seems to have been paused. 

Moriarty, the Labour councillor, says that people living in the area have felt neglected for so long that many had struggled to believe the redevelopment would ever happen.

When councillors voted through the plans in February and families started to move out, excitement grew, he says. 

“For it to be thrown up in the air, I don't think you can really quantify or express the frustration,” he said.

The plans include demolishing the blocks that are there and building 171 new homes, a community, cultural and arts space and a childcare facility. And a large multi-use games area – of at least 500–600 sqm.

In Limbo

The Basin Street Flats sits on the edge of the Liberties, behind the Guinness Storehouse and not far from the planned new Guinness Quarter of apartments and more. 

It’s near the new National Children’s Hospital, and down the street from the shiny new towers of the Grand Canal Harbour apartment complex.  

In fact, Gibbons, the chair of the residents association said he hoped that being so close to the Guinness lot might help things move faster. “They want tourists to see clean new buildings, not these old things.”

But Dublin City Council has put little to no investment into maintenance around the flats, says resident Zora Hudson, in her flat on Tuesday.

Residents complain of damp, mould, rodents and anti-social behaviour, she says.

She feels the same disappointment as many other locals, she says. “We don’t know what’s happening. It’s just backwards and forwards. We’re in total limbo.”

She knows a few of her neighbours have already been moved out to make way for the redevelopment, she says. She had hoped her family would be next, says Hudson.

Moriarty, the Labour councillor, says that a council official told him last week that they had officially paused the “decanting” process, because of the uncertainty hanging over the Basin Street project.

A council spokesperson on Thursday denied that. The council has “not halted any residents moving out of the Basin View complex. Both the Project Team and Area Office are engaging with the local community to ensure any concerns about the project are addressed”, they said.

Residents Hudson and Carroll say they hadn’t heard of any meaningful engagement from the project team or area office.

They want a meeting with the council, said Gibbons, the chair of the residents association. “But we don’t know what’s happening there”.

Carroll says she applied to be moved to any of three properties in Drimnagh. After some back and forth between various council officials, she says she was eventually told that she wasn’t priority yet, so couldn’t be moved to any of them.

Gibbons says people are angry and upset with the sudden, apparent stop in progress. 

Hopes of redevelopment stretch back 30 years, he says. “It’s a generational thing.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing says that all remaining projects under the PPP bundles will still be advanced using an “appropriate procurement and delivery strategy”.

But there is no clear plan, and no clear timelines.

A spokesperson for Dublin City Council said they couldn’t say how long Bundle 3 is expected to be delayed. “We are currently working on identifying the most expedient way to deliver the homes.”

The council spokesperson said they are continuing work on the projects included in Bundles 4 and 5 to get them ready for contractor procurement. 

And, working with the Department of Housing and the NDFA to agree on the best delivery route for these projects, which is “happening in parallel”. 

Farrell, the resident and community activist, says the uncertainty and lack of clear guidance from central government and the council has left room for conspiracy theories to flourish in the area about where the funding has gone.

At this point, Carroll says she feels like nobody cares about the people of Basin Street flats. “We’re just being left here to rot.”