Cork City Council to move forward on 600-home plan on Old Whitechurch Rd

Aerial photos showing the advanced site works which have been completed at the city council-owned land bank on the old Whitechurch Rd.

Plans to deliver a massive 600-unit housing estate on a large publicly-owned site in Cork City are set to take a major step forward within weeks.

City officials are to issue a call to the open market by the end of this month, seeking expressions of interest from builders and developers for the creation of a vast new residential community on a 54-acre landbank on the city’s northside.

The largely greenfield site in the townland of Kilnap, between the Old Whitechurch Rd and the Old Mallow Rd, has been in city council ownership for a number of years.

A report to councillors stated: 

“Cork City Council envisages social and affordable housing provision to create a residential community development of around 600 homes incorporating retail, educational, and amenity facilities.” 

Work to determine the mix and balance of house types is ongoing, but the site will include a huge mix of social and affordable housing units.

News that the long-held ambition to build houses on this site is moving to the delivery phase follows confirmation that enabling work on the site is substantially complete.

Councillors voted just over two years ago to start extensive enabling works to unlock and service the lands for housing development. It was the first of a two-stage process.

The enabling works, funded mainly by the government’s Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF), included the provision of water, foul water and surface water drainage services, the construction of a spine or access road with ducting for electricity, gas, phone and other utilities, the burying of overhead power and communications lines, as well as junction and improvement works on the Old Whitechurch Rd and Old Mallow Rd.

It also involved substantial works to the adjacent Kilbarry 110KB substation to facilitate the undergrounding of overhead cables.

With those works almost complete, the council is now ready to move to the second stage of housing delivery.

It will be done in four steps, the first of which is the issuing of the open call to the market by the end of the month. It will be followed by an invitation to the qualified bidders to dialogue with City Hall, which will ultimately lead to the issuing of tenders in stage three, followed by the final stage — the planning process and construction.