Dublin City Council has denied it “moved the goalposts” in relation to the development of a major social and affordable housing scheme, which has been the subject of a disagreement with developer Bernard McNamara.
Mr McNamara said at the weekend he had not “pulled out” of a number of public-private housing regeneration projects in the capital, but that the council had informed him it wanted to take “a different route”.
The projects at Infirmary Road, St Michael’s estate in Inchicore, Dominick Street, Sean MacDermott Street and O’Devaney Gardens, were to build about 1,800 new homes between them. The total value of the schemes is estimated at €900 million.
Bernard McNamara
Under the proposals, the developers were to retain about 800 units and sell them, while the remainder would be used by Dublin City Council for social and affordable housing, replacing some old flat complexes.
Assistant city manager Ciaran McNamara (no relation) said today the local authority would be willing to speak to Bernard McNamara at any stage but that any solution had to be found quickly.
"The important thing to me here, and at all times, is our tenants and I’m conscious of the fact that this process is taking so long and has been so protracted,” he said.
“We have met on a number of occasions and noted that there was very little progress being made.”
"We cannot go back into the same spiral of discussions that are leading nowhere. And whatever is done, it has to be done within the rules of the PPP process," the assistant city manager told RTE's Morning Irelandprogramme.
“I’m prepared to talk to Bernard again and I’ll talk to him again today. If he has proposals which can be brought to fruition under the present process, I’ll be very happy. In actual fact, the City Council will be delighted. But we have been down this route quite a bit and when something is brought to me and to our legal people which says it can be done within the present process, we’ll be delighted.”
Asked whether the council had “changed the goalposts” by reducing the number of homes to be built in the Infirmary Road scheme, Mr McNamara said: “No, the goalposts didn’t change. Remember, with public-private partnerships you are talking about the private sector taking on an element of risk.”
The council had advised the developer to apply for 200 apartments in the scheme and he had applied for 225. Following an appeal, the process went to An Bord Pleanála and permission was given for 162 apartments.
The amount of money Mr McNamara had been due to pay the council in that case had been reduced, in line with a remedy written into the agreement, the council official said.
Asked about Bernard McNamara’s statement that he was happy to work with the underbidders in the tender process in order to progress the scheme, the assistant city manager said the council itself could not speak to the underbidders at this stage.
“If Bernard can find a way to do that within the process, we would be delighted to facilitate it.”
Ciarán McNamara said he had met officials from the Department of the Environment and that if the housing schemes had to be funded from the normal capital allocation to the local authorities it would take longer to accomplish.
“What they’ve said is that if this whole process ends, we’ll go back and we’ll put our plans on the table and we’ll discuss it at that stage.”