Mention of ghost housing estates immediately brings to mind some of the ghastly half -built developments in the midlands which folded when the property market crashed.
Less well-known is the fact that there is also a partially- built housing scheme in Carrickmines, Co Dublin, which has one of the best road infrastructures in the country.
Residents of Carrickmines Manor on the Glenamuck Road won’t be surprised to hear that part of their upmarket estate is to be redeveloped in the coming months.
The original developer, Pierse Construction, went into liquidation in 2010, leaving a string of developments unfinished including a large part of the Carrickmines site.
About 100 houses and 120 apartments were completed and sold on the site before the company ran into trouble. It had also started to build 36 terraced houses which are at various stages of completion but now considered “an eyesore and dangerous,” according to one resident.
Liquidators Grant Thornton have engaged Ryan Nowlan Consulting and architects OMP to chart a way out of the mess. The agreed solution is to demolish all the half-built houses and replace them with 76 three- and four- bedroom detached, semis and terraced houses. The availability of 6.3 acres means the scheme can still comply with the 47 units per hectare density in the Dún Laoghaire development plan.
Once planning permission comes through the site is likely to be offered for sale for an investor to develop. Its value may well be influenced by the €4 million sale by Savills last autumn of a four-acre site with permission for 43 houses on the same road that was bought by Greg Kavanagh of New Generation Homes.
Michael Cotter of Park Developments, who built The Park retail complex across the road, will surely be keeping a close eye on developments.
