Maria Atanacković first makes sketches of loose images that appear from somewhere in her memory. “Then I have to figure out how I’m actually going to make it.”
While delayed, the project on Emmet Road at St Michael’s Estate is inching forward, and the current plans show 548 cost-rental and social homes – up from 484 last year.
Local councillors are unanimous in wanting more than just housing, saying there should be shops, children’s play areas, a pub. Past plans to redevelop the site with private developers have, time and again, fallen through.
None of the second round of affordable rental homes funded with help from the government’s Cost Rental Equity Loan scheme will be in the city. None of the first were either.
At Cedarview, the rules forbid hanging out laundry or barbecuing – and some residents fear car clamping might soon be rolled out across the estate too.
“The near-total dominance of this typology has adverse long-term consequences for the creation of sustainable communities,” council chief Owen Keegan has said.
In his efforts to make sure his apartment complex in Swords is secure and maintained, he’s up against a Cypriot subsidiary of a fund with more than half-a-billion euro worth of property in Ireland.
