Everything is in place for the state to build 460 affordable long-term homes for low and middle income families on Carmahall Road in Sandyford (business district).
The land is owned by the state. The planning permission has just been secured. The funding is available. And there is massive demand from local families that want to live in or close to the communities they grew up in.
So why is NAMA preparing to sell the site to a REIT or other institutional landlord?.
The newly secured planning permission also includes car parks, a creche, a cafe, a gym, a movie room, a meeting room and other community facilities.
If it's sold to a private landlord, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council will end up paying top dollar to buy 10% of the apartments under Section V. And they'll likely end up renting even more of them at top dollar via the HAP scheme. This is total madness.
The land should be transferred to Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and the complex should be built as the state's flagship Universal Public Housing development.
Universal Public Housing is not the same at the current system of social housing, which has created concentrated pockets of poverty and deprivation.
Universal Public Housing is open to low, middle and even high income families. It provides people with rental homes that are affordable AND totally secure. And it creates balanced, stable communities.
The city of Vienna operates a very successful system of Universal Public Housing. In that city over 60% of people live in affordable public or other not-for-profit housing. Vienna is regularly voted the greatest city in the world to live. And that's no coincidence.
The tide is starting to turn on private-developer-dominated housing.
Just one week ago the state announced that it was going to build the first 'cost rental' development in the history of the state. Yesterday it was reported that the state was considering using public land at Cathal Brugha barracks to build affordable housing for low and middle income families.
Josepha Madigan TD and Shane Ross TD are both sitting at the cabinet table. They need to use their influence to stop another apartment complex being sold off to the REITs. It's up to all of us to put pressure on them to do the right thing for once. Contact them on facebook, send them an email or call them (contact details below). They are meant to be representing us - the people of Rathdown - so let's make sure they do.
The site is on Carmanhall Road in the Sandyford Business District.
Minister Josepha Madigan
Phone: 016313800
Email: josepha.madigan@oireachtas.ie
Minister Shane Ross
Phone: 016041039
Email: shane.ross@oireachtas.ie
(Originally published on Facebook on July 30th, 2018.)