A €12 million redevelopment project at Croke Park in Dublin including the provision of 54 new social homes and a main road to the stadium, has been approved by local councillors.
Dublin City Council last year reached agreement with the GAA, following three years of talks, to transfer lands to the sports organisation for a payment of €6.4 million.
The GAA wanted the land to develop a “processional boulevard” to the stadium from Ballybough Road, which would become the only match-day entrance, taking crowds out of the surrounding streets.
Funding
In exchange, the council would get funding to start the redevelopment of Croke Villas, a 1960s flat complex on Sackville Avenue, which was to have been regenerated through a public-private partnership that collapsed in 2008. The complex is now in an advanced state of decay and just nine of the 79 flats are occupied.
Some local councillors, including the chairman of the council’s central area committee, Independent Nial Ring, had been reluctant to approve the deal because of a lack of information about the total cost of the project and the number of homes which would be built.
Up until yesterday only the funding put forward by the GAA was known, and not the amount which would be required from the Department of the Environment to compete the housing project. However, councillors have agreed to approve the deal due to concerns that Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly may quash it if there was a deferral.
Mr Kelly had been reluctant to sign off on the council's deal with the GAA because the estate was identified as having the potential to house families under Mr Kelly's action plan on homelessness, published before Christmas last year, following the death near Leinster House of homeless man Jonathan Corrie.
Delay
“Alan Kelly is going like a galloping horse to refurbish Croke Villas [for homeless use] if there’s a delay in this, he will be out of the traps and he will crucify us. Let’s move on,” Independent councillor
Christy Burke
said.
Mr Ring said he still had concerns but agreed to the deal for the regeneration on the grounds Mr Kelly might “whip them for refurbishment”.
Sinn Féin's Janice Boylan said she had been contacted by the residents of Croke Villas who wanted the GAA deal to go ahead. "We can't be in a position where we are going to stop this going ahead."
Tony Flynn, executive manager of the council's housing department said the full cost of the project would be €12 million.
