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I have no doubt that Cllr Quinn and the rest of the council majority shall question Mr. Tierney on this issue; no doubt with all party support.

I have no idea where the €20m figure comes from as the maximum permission that could have been secured could have been for a lone single storey cottage which was modelled loosely on the park rangers lodge at St Stephens Green.

Then came Bear Stearns and the complete collapse of residential land prices in the very limited number of tranactions taking place. Now is the time to serve the notice to treat as the price will be based upon the value on the date the notice is served long before prices recover.

Depending upon the scale of the price a choice can be made later whether the council considers the purchase to be in the public interest and whether it is prudent to complete based upon the award which lets face it will be based upon:

The worst speculative residential land development funding background in 30 years; that the subject property is situate in a conservation area and bounded on all sides by period railings, that the land is zoned amenity, that the title is subject to a lease and that there will no access for plant based upon the tree preservation order. Put simply you would have extreme difficulty placing a single dwelling within the site let alone delivering 100 clear sites to reach €20m based upon €200k per site.

I strongly hope that all party consensus emerges and that all councillors for Pembroke, Rathmines and South Inner City set up a cross party meeting as now is the time to get Tierney up off his backside. Bewleys was also a market reason why it was beyond preservation and Quinn delivered in conjunction with the relevant stakeholders; the question is can Chris Andrews?

@gunter wrote:

I’m not sure if the ‘ongoing income’ argument stands up. On a map, the amount of actual building footprint looks about the same! What DDDA gain by building on the campshire and out over the Liffey, they lose by digging the canal!

Nail on head and all that gunter ! Its extremely difficult to see the reasoning behind the canal element, worse still they appear to be using this fairly pointless indulgence as justification for breaking the line of the liffey – one of few structural constants in a city that can otherwise appear overly jumbled.

@ctesiphon wrote:

Lads, you’re not going to ‘win’ this one. Best policy is to ignore his posts, at least until he starts making sense.

Suggested that a page back, but that post mysteriously dissappeared.

@notjim wrote:

Just to be clear about this, continuing on to Charlemont wouldn’t prevent them digging a station for the Green will it? So what is the advantage? They aren’t putting the TBM’s in at the Green are they; I assume they are going in at the other end and will be left buried at the Green end.

The advantage would be that they only need to consider the exits as the tunnelling and main station fit out could be accessed via both ends of the tunnel as is the case with most TBM bored underground rail systems. The point you have raised on the nature of construction has raised far more issues however and either way it is felt that the treatment of this location is simply unacceptable from either a logical or heritage viewpoint.

There will be two tunnels and given the costs of TBMs there is no way that 2 of them will be left in the ground.

My understanding of this is that the method of construction will be similar to the hugely successful Dublin Port Tunnel whereby a TBM will leave the northern porthole and surface in the green, undergo a full service and then head back to de nortside.

If this isn’t the case it raises the question why on earth do they need to thrash the lake in the Green?

Hyde Park Corner is the perfect example of how to build a tube station serving two major heritage parks (Hyde & Green parks) without any impact to either.

I however fear that the DPT model is the one that they will follow and that thousands of trucks of muck will come out of the green for the period of construction.

Agreed, it is wasted on the Department of Ed …

@jdivision wrote:

1. Because the locals have consistently opposed any plans to demolish the flats there
2. They will soon be able to buy said flats themselves leading to disparate ownership and even greater difficulties in securing a concensus on the future of the site

In 1985 Swan Grove opened and relieved the most over-crowded family units from the Tom Kelly complex what I am advised remains are mostly empty nesters who had small families in the 1970’s. The complex is unsuited to the needs of its occupants and I am sure that given the choice that most would prefer a new two bed apartment in a mixed tenure modern block without the stigma of the horrendous 1960’s Corpo design built a decade after the brits learned from their mistakes .

The value of local authority housing in such blocks is always a fraction of those with a segment of affordable housing; even the wealthiest boroughs of London have bargains if you go former local authority try £300k for a 2 bed in Hampstead vs £800k for the private sector build 200m down the road. More worryingly the built environment suffers as consesnus is required for replacement; what developer in their right mind would try to acquire 50 resi units in a non-cpo environment? If tenant purchase goes ahead these blocks will outlive both of us.

The more I think about it; the perfect election trick would be to demolish Charlemont Gardens and the football pitch behind and replace them with 6 story lego blocks to complete in 2010 in time for the local elections provide enough housing for the 4 existing blocks; then with the freed up space build the metro entrance and when complete in time for the 2012 general election; then the site value would be unlocked in a market that is vastly improved from now to pay for all the other giveaways required to bribe the population to forget the last 5 years!

The alternative is a wrecked St Stephens Green, retention of civic visual terrorism that never delivered a return a la the subsidised tenant purchase scheme and the CBD subjected to two periods of significant construction disturbance.

@gunter wrote:

It doesn’t strike me as the most ecological building going up in Dublin at the moment,

Its supposed to be the first (in Ireland) to use only recycled cement or some such … thanks for pic !

@BoB wrote:

Yeah that was hilarious yesterday listening to the coverage on Newstalk of the chaos that enveloped Dublins ‘progressive’ (is that the right word there PeterF,, progressive did I get it right) transport system, because of one signal failure. 15 min delay turned to 30,45,1 hour , nearly fell off the garden seat laughing , no serioulsy I nearly did kept hearing the word integrated,integrated, being spoken in a rodents voice in my head.

If you have to falsify my post or comments of others to make an argument]
PeterF you live on a luas line dont you… go buy some reading material.
[/QUOTE]

I do indeed, your comments aside, there’s plenty of decent reading material on this site, cheers.

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

Peter, how does this fit into your definition of progress? … Im still 100% behind this project, its going to be a source of endless amusement as well as cementing for all time and for all to see the fairly disastrous actions,waste and mediocre achievements of those involved, it will be their maginot line …

I made no effort to define progress, it was just a basic point that most contributors seem to be well meaning, whereas your posts often read as the sneers of an exiled emporer type, watching his people flounder in his absence. Not so much what you say, but the way that you say it.
You are of course entitled to tell me to feck off 🙂

I don’t agree with your wider points, but obviously am concerned about possible impacts on the green.

@BostonorBerlin wrote:

Dublins turned into a right shite hole anyways, may as well drive the last pylon in the coffin and be done with it, then everyone might stop codding themselves that its some kind of vibrant cosmopolitan utopian phoenix arising from the flames of the Celtic tiger, envy of europe and all that bollix. Ha ha

I doubt many that post here are so deluded as to view Dublin in those terms, lets call them your terms. I’d suggest most are motivated to contribute out of affection for their capital city and a desire to see it progress, however each one defines progress.