Residents mount legal action to halt apartments project

RESIDENTS in Dublin’s docklands are to seek a High Court injunction to prevent the construction of hundreds of luxury apartments.

Spencer Dock, part of one of the largest urban developments in the State’s history, will include nearly 1,000 luxury apartments.

But docklands communities say social and affordable housing contained in the plans is an example of “housing apartheid” and will flout development plans for the area. They say social housing will be separate from the luxury apartments and would be divided by a busy road and large office block.

Gerry Fay of the North Docklands Community Group said this contrasted with the development plans for the area which insist that all buildings must contain integrated housing between people of different backgrounds.

The Dublin Docklands Development Authority, which gave permission for the development, says it is delighted with the plans and that the social and affordable housing element represents the most appropriate element of integration. Community groups are now raising the 5,500 needed to mount the legal challenge and are hopeful the developers will be forced to modify their plans.

Social and affordable housing accounts for 21.5% of the apartments. Treasury Holdings, which designed the complex, says the social apartments will be indistinguishable from the luxury apartments, although they will be smaller.

A spokesman said initial preparations for the apartments, which will be built at heights varying from between five and ten stories, would begin immediately.

Docklands communities say they will fight their legal battle on the basis of the contents of the original masterplan for the area, which they say represented a fair compromise between the various interest groups.

The fears that with the social housing isolated, any private apartments will be bought at a cheap rate by the State and the area will turn into an “urban ghetto”.

In a joint statement last night, the residents said; “With no fair arbitrator to avoid such bad decision-making, the community is left not with any other option but to look to the courts as the final arbitrator on the masterplan.”

More than 500 apartments have already been sold and the entire development of the site is expected to take 10 years.

The 10-acre site lies between the Irish Financial Services Centre and land towards the Point Depot on the north side of the Liffey.