Corporation sells land despite housing shortage

Corporation accused of ‘selling land to the highest bidder’

WHILE the inner city suffers from the worst public housing shortage since the 1950s, Dublin Corporation has been criticised for selling a site in the heart of the Liberties to private developers.

Following the sale of 53 Lower Kevin Street to Belltrap Ltd developers for £160,000 last October, Green Councillor Ciaran Cuffe has accused the Corporation of having "an attitude of selling property to the highest bidder".

Cllr Cuffe, an architect and chairman of the planning and development committee in Dublin City council, added: "I strive to identify as many properties suitable for the development of public housing but the right hand of the housing department seems not to know what its left hand is doing."

The Kevin Street house, along with neighbouring properties already owned by Belltrap, is to be developed into a major hotel and apartment complex by the same company. The 195-bedroom hotel and apartment complex will extend all the way back to Bishop Street and face onto Aungier Street.

Terry McDermott, of Dublin Corporation’s urban renewal section, says that "with more than 6,000 households on the city's housing waiting lists and with an average of only 191 houses being built per annum, the need for suitable sites is vital".

However, he says the Kevin Street site partly owned by the Corporation was "too small to cater for any serious housing development".