As an anti-immigrant encampment dwindles on Basin View, its organisers try to rally
One man who’s been involved has been trying to organise a social event on a nearby council football pitch, something the council says it’s “monitoring”.
High buildings drive up construction costs and land values, some say, which means more expensive homes.
The council says no because the planning permission is for offices. A new owner could apply to change that.
“You’ve got to question the government’s resolve,” Social Democrats TD Cian O’Callaghan says. “They don’t seem to be showing much resolve.”
This week, Dublin City Council put out a draft masterplan for redeveloping Jamestown Business Park. It’s all private land though, so timelines are out of the council’s control.
The tax, coming in 2024, is meant to push owners of land zoned for housing to develop it quickly.
To get council managers to the bargaining table, elected representatives rezoned the site to block their plans. Chief Executive Owen Keegan was not pleased.
Local councillors are proposing to rezone it for recreational use instead, so that the playing fields there can be opened back up and retained.
Rezoning to existing residential designations pushes land values way up, making it tough to build affordable housing there, even if someone wanted to.
But the homes would still be built by a private developer, instead of by Dublin City Council, as councillors had wanted when they rejected the last plan for the site.
At their March monthly meeting at City Hall, Dublin city councillors talked about a proposed moratorium on selling council-owned land that’s suitable for housing, and more.
Some of the issues that councillors raised were site-specific, while others were much broader, focused on fears around the quality of developments that might follow.
Councillors are teasing out how to vote. Among the issues in play? A lack of clarity over the number of social homes proposed, a fear of really expensive rentals, and council funds.