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.
Rather than creating 75 permanent social homes, there’s a chance developers will instead lease them to the council for 15 years, according to planning documents.
Councillors face a choice: to sell the land, perhaps, and use the money for much-needed community facilities. Or to keep the land, perhaps, for much-needed affordable or social homes.
Handing it over to a private operator would drive up prices and drive out small traders, say some councillors. Dublin City Council says it can set conditions when seeking operators.
For heritage reasons, and also environmental ones, Dublin City Council is working on a plan to improve rather than discard Ballybough House, designed by Herbert Simms, and built in 1938.
The charity’s CEO says he used an apartment as an office. But “it is supposed to be used for social housing, it should not be an office”, says independent Councillor Anthony Flynn.
Some councillors worry that transferring council sites to these not-for-profit bodies to provide social homes on them could lead to privatisation. Is that valid?
Dublin councillors rejected a proposal from chief executive Owen Keegan to sell bundles of lands. But the plot sales will likely come again before the council, one by one.
More than a year ago, CHAS was criticised for moving out elderly social-housing tenants, and renting to students. Students are still living there, and now the charity wants to buy the land.
