A proposed planning application to build five houses and a car park on the green area opposite Rathsallagh Grove in Shankill is not due to go ahead in the area according to Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council.
Local resident Kevin Brennan told The Gazette that he was “worried” about the idea that there might be additional houses built in the cul-de-sac as part of a project called Home Grown Homes.
The proposed planning application is part of a new housing project set up by Niall Martin and two architects to offer local people in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown the chance to build their own homes.
A meeting was held last week in the Resource Centre at St Anne’s Church in Shankill to showcase the plans put forward by Mr Martin and more than 100 local people turned up to hear about it.
As part of the proposed housing scheme, interested applicants must be on the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown housing list and they must be willing to put in construction site hours for a year.
Mortgages
By the end of the process, respective applicants will own their own home and there will be no financial cost to build the homes as Mr Martin has building materials and tradespeople readily available.
Once the homes are built, planned mortgages will be arranged for the families involved which will cost substantially less than other homes. According to Mr Martin, a unit can be built for between €60,000 to €80,000.
Local residents who attended the meeting last week raised concerns that there would not be enough space to hold the amount of cars driving in and out of the estate even with the proposed car park that is planned.
Mr Brennan said: “It is not feasible to build these houses in our estate. I’m living here 41 years and I would not be happy for this build to go ahead.”
Cllr Denis O’Callaghan told the Gazette: “To my knowledge no planning application has been lodged for either housing or a car park in Rathsallagh Grove Shankill. Neither has anybody from Rathsallagh Grove contacted me about this.
“The piece of ground he may be referring to has a residential zoning on it and is in the ownership of the council. They have no plans at present to build on it.”
A spokesperson for DLRCC also told the Gazette that the build is not due to go ahead in the foreseeable future and said: “We have no record of an application at this location.”
At the meeting held in Shankill last week, however, it emerged that there are five other sites in the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown area that are being looked at as potential sites to build these new homes on.
