O’Devaney Gardens – where things stand now.

UPDATE from Consultative Forum meeting tonight (21/2/18) which I chaired in Prussia Street Parish Centre:

• Closed tender process for selection of contractor to build first 56 public homes to be completed by March. Assessment of tenders to be completed in April.
• Selection of Contractor and start of on-site works in May 2018.
• City Council finalising HLI dialogue process with potential developers for the rest of the site.
• Work on building surveys on properties surrounding the O’Devaney site will begin across the coming weeks.

Just over 12 months ago, local T.D. and Finance Minister, Paschal Donohoe announced that our Fine Gael-led Government was giving the O’Devaney Gardens redevelopment the go ahead by allocating almost €19m to fund the construction the delivery of the first tranch of public housing.

Much work has been done by Dublin City Council in the intervening period to advance the redevelopment. However, many Stoneybatter residents have been seeking an update from me as to the progress that is being made. In particular, residents have been eager to establish when a contractor will be on site starting work on building new homes. Therefore, I sought a detailed update from the Chief Executive of Dublin City Council on the status of project including indicative timelines for the tendering and procuring of design teams, contractors, planning timelines etc.

Earlier this month, the Chief Executive responded to my representations advising that:

A portion (56)  of the 20% social units to be built as part The O’Devaney Gardens Housing land Initiative site have been frontloaded for development and are being built directly by the City Council through a contractor, in the normal way. The design and the tender documents for these 56 units are now complete. The tender documents will issue by the end of next week, at which stage the statutory procurement timelines will come into play and will result in contracts being finalised by the end of Qtr. 1.

The overall site (including the 56 units) has the potential to yield over 585 mixed tenure residential units on the basis of a 30% social / 20% affordable / 50% private mix.

 The procurement procedure (Competitive Dialogue) for the development of the rest of the site is progressing – 6 prospective candidates have now been identified who will be invited via an Invitation To Participate in Dialogue (ITPD) to the next stage – the ITPD documents are currently being proofed by the NDFA and the Housing Land Initiative legal team and are scheduled to be issued (subject to approval of the Project Board) by February 28th.

 The time invested in the dialogue stage will depend on how many of the six candidates actually participate, as an indication, it is expected that the process will last at least three months (including statutory, standstill periods along with the actual dialogue and clarifications, etc.) before the Project Agreement will be finalised.

Both developments (the 56 units and the rest of the site) can then be progressed as per Planning Permissions, phasing and the Development Agreement between the parties. It is estimated that the entire project could be complete between 36 to 48 months thereafter.

I will be chairing the latest meeting of the O’Devaney Gardens Consultative Forum this evening in Prussia Street. I hope this update provides you with a clear timeline for the delivery of new homes on the redeveloped O’Devaney Gardens. Almost 590 new homes will be provided, with 50% owner occupier, 30% public housing delivered by Dublin City Council and the remaining 20% will be provided for Affordable Homes to buy through RebuildingIrelandHomeLoans.ie and a new concept of Affordable Rental.

Please email me at raymcadam@gmail.com if you have any particular questions or queries arising from the details outlined above.