Lowering The Roof

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Capital Dock, Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, the tallest apartment block in Ireland. Kennedy Wilson plans to include no social housing in the complex, but instead to provide its social housing obligations in Rialto

There will be no social housing in property investment company Kennedy Wilson’s new Capital Dock apartment scheme on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, and that just 1 per cent of social homes designated for the docklands have been provided because of high costs.

….Under the planning laws, developers must provide 10 per cent of any development of 10 homes or more to local authorities at a discounted price.

Changes made in 2015 mean councils can no longer take cash from the developer instead of social housing, but they can take homes or land at another location.

…The department [of Housing] requires [Dublin City Council] council to stay within average costs of €286,300 for one-bedroom apartments or €372,100 for two-beds within any development. However, it must not pay over a ceiling of €400,800 or €469,500 respectively for any one or two-bed apartment.

Social housing price caps need to be dropped for docklands (Irish Times)

Rollingnews

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35 thoughts on “Lowering The Roof

    1. Junkface

      Agreed, its a butt ugly block of grey. Did Ireland learn nothing from the crimes of 1950’s – 60’s Dublin architecture? Awful stuff.

    2. Spaghetti Hoop

      I love it. Is there a new architectural movement called ‘Tetris’? If not there should be. All design is very subjective though.

  1. George

    They shouldn’t be allowed to do this. This is ghettoization that costs the state a lot of money in the long run.

    1. Papi

      Yes, but by keeping all these people in Capitol Dock we avoid the arseholery they carry with them as standard. For the greater good and all that.

    2. b

      there’s a happy medium to putting social housing tenants in a penthouse apartment and in some ghetto. Makes no sense and is a waste of resources for the council to take one of those units

      1. George

        Who said anything about a penthouse? You come out with that hyperbole and then write about happy mediums. The happy medium is to house them in the same building. This isn’t “a waste of resources”. It is a waste of resources to concentrate social housing in areas like Rialto as this results in a higher concentration of people with various types of issues (I’m not saying that everyone in social housing has social problems but a high percentage of those with social problems require social housing) which causes all sorts of problems which in addition to the social cost also ultimately cost money in heathcare, social welfare, the justice system etc…

  2. Daisy Chainsaw

    You can’t be putting povs in posh places, t lowers the tone and the resale value. Dublin 8 is perfect for povs as they’ll be among their own sort.

      1. Joe Small

        It wears off after a while. I tried walking in a park in the Liberties later and turned around when I saw 3 lads injecting right in front of me. At lunch time.

        1. Bort

          What they mean, “I love temporarily renting in the liberties, etc etc until i can afford to rent or buy elsewhere”. I lived on Meath St and Jame’s St, fun at the start but couldn’t wait to get out of either apartment. Obstacle course of unsavory types getting home every evening and night. Apartment “building” door kicked in, stolen bikes and car broken into. Friends robbed right outside the door after leaving my gaff. Constant screaming and fights on both streets at night. Lovely place to knock about during the day playing Eliza Doolittle or going for a few pints with a group for a night. Better Pubs there now, but in my day you’d only venture into the Clock, Thomas House or McGruders (RIP)

      1. Nialler

        Nice that your crowd of povs up their are getting them at our povs expense, I’ve got 2 girlie povs, a grandson pov and his daddy pov living with us in ringer, they woulda been delighted to wave at us povs from the top floors of capital dock.

  3. GavoB

    If developers have to put aside a percentage of houses they build for social housing. Then what happens if a developer wants to build an estate of mansions ?
    They build an small estate of 10 super high end houses somewhere in North County Dublin. With the explicit intention of selling the houses only to the very wealthy. Are they still duty bound to hand one of these over to the council for social housing ?
    This is a genuine question. How does this work ?

    1. Cian

      No, and then again, Yes.

      They are obliged to sell one mansion to the council for social housing. But the council won’t want (or be able to afford) it. Originally the builders were able to buy their way out of the obligation – they just threw some cash at the councils (or more accurately, there was a hidden tax on new homes that the house buyers had to pay). But this meant that the councils weren’t getting new houses (I wonder what happened to all the cash they were getting – did it go on housing?).

      So the pragmatic solution is that the builder must provide the houses somewhere – but they are free to supply it from a different site.

      1. SOQ

        I get mixed housing because as we see up north, social on its own is a recipe for all sorts but mixing very poor and very rich isn’t going to work either because both are going to resent each other.

        As long as the accommodation provided in Rialto is acceptable, I really don’t see the problem.

    2. George

      Yes, they should have to either build smaller houses or simply build a “mansion” divided into multiple apartments. There is no absolute right to be granted planning permission for 10 mansions.

  4. Bort

    What they mean, “I love temporarily renting in the liberties, etc etc until i can afford to rent or buy elsewhere”. I lived on Meath St and Jame’s St, fun at the start but couldn’t wait to get out of either apartment. Obstacle course of unsavory types getting home every evening and night. Apartment “building” door kicked in, stolen bikes and car broken into. Friends robbed right outside the door after leaving my gaff. Constant screaming and fights on both streets at night. Lovely place to knock about during the day playing Eliza Doolittle or going for a few pints with a group for a night. Better Pubs there now, but in my day you’d only venture into the Clock, Thomas House or McGruders (RIP)

    Damnit, I’m getting totes emosh thinking about McGruders. Damnt the liberties has a special place in my heart too!

  5. Nialler

    Well this is precisely what is happening in Ringsend, there’s still a lot of social housing in the area, the flats where I grew up are still full, so six blocks there, 2 blocks down by the park, I think 4 in Irishtown, but even though everyone in my house is working in relatively decent jobs, my kids can’t afford to rent around here, definitely can’t afford to buy, Gordon Street and The Ropery being perfect examples of that, €4k per month rent and €895k to buy, social/affordable housing you my be still paying up to and over €1000 a month dependent on your circumstances possibly (I’m sure I’m wrong) but again coming from a social housing background I sometimes take offence of the attitudes, it’s not all pyjamas and benefits, some people including my parents worked hard all their life and paid their rent and also did up their flats without help from the council.

    In saying all of the above I have pointed out to my youngest and her partner that Virginia is literally an hour away and you can get a very nice house with a large garden, clean air for a very affordable mortgage, but they wanna live around here which I do not think is a reality any more.

  6. Joe

    Our goverment have always been great at putting in laws that give a way to game the system. They wouldn’t be doing that to help their buddies or anything liked that, clearly accidental.

  7. Baron Von Tart

    If anyone saw the whats app video of what happened in that building last year you wouldn’t want to live there, this is Ireland after all caveat emptor etc etc

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