Paul Clerkin

PRESS RELEASE
Issued : 13-9-1999
For Immediate Release

PRESBYTERIAN RESIDENTIAL TRUST TO PROCEED WITH TRITONVILLE SHELTERED ACCOMMODATION DEVELOPMENT

The Presbyterian Residential Trust is to proceed with its original plans to develop its site at Tritonville Road in Dublin to provide a further 17 units of sheltered accommodation for the elderly complementing the existing 32 units already on the site.

The Trust had voluntarily postponed work on the site on August 13 to consider last minute objections raised by local residents, despite its application for planning permission having been granted by Dublin Corporation Planning Department on 3 occasions over the last 7 years and most recently on May 6, 1999. No objections were ever raised during the processing of these planning applications.

Progress on the £1.5 million project to provide urgently needed accommodation in the Dublin area was halted by the Trust to allow time for residents to make representation over the concerns they had about the demolition of the redundant Sandymount Church which has not be used for worship for over 20 years.

In the 4 weeks since August 13, members of the Trust have met twice with a group comprising Sandymount residents, local politicians, officials of An Taisce and a solicitor and architect working on the project on the residents’ behalf, to hear their concerns and to receive proposals from them detailing other ways in which the site could be developed. In that time Trust representatives have also met with Dublin Corporation Planning Department, Dublin Corporation Housing Grants Department and the National Monuments Committee.

Now having reviewed its own proposals which were developed over a seven year period from 1992 and given detailed consideration to the residents proposals including having some outline drawings prepared by the Trust’s architects to test the feasibility of one suggested option they have decided to proceed with the project as originally planned.

This involves the removal of the disused Sandymount Presbyterian Church and Halls and selling part of the site with planning permission for development of private apartments. On the remainder of the site a new 17 bed sheltered dwelling complex and communal area will be built. The total cost of the project is £1.5m which will be funded by the Presbyterian Residential Trust and the proceeds from the partial sale of the site.

The Presbyterian Residential Trust was established 50 years ago in 1949 by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland and runs a total of 9 nursing, residential and sheltered dwelling projects throughout Ireland. At any time there are about 250 residents in the various homes and sheltered dwellings run by the Trust which in addition to all the usual facilities makes a conscious effort to ensure residents are offered spiritual support and encouragement. The Tritonville Sheltered Housing complex was opened in 1971 and extended in 1981. It has 27 single flats and 5 double flats.

You can email them at

Info@PresbyterianIreland.org

I’ll set up a form on Archeire

One thing to remember folks is that by keeping the boards going and making them a lively place for debate etc also encourages others to post. So in short you, the regular posters are helping make the site a success.

One thing I would like is for the boards to become less “dublin-o-centric” – perhaps a few people based down the country would like to comment on whats happening architecturally in their locality.

Afterall Dublin is not Ireland.

There isn’t a revenue model for this as the site wasnt exactly planned – more just happened. Any advertisements on the sites are for our inhouse projects of our web development house. So there’s no income whatsoever from the site which is a pity as some sort of financial reward would help fund it. If however someone wished to advertise, we’d be willing to listen.

In an ideal world, a company with nice deep pockets would come along and sponsor the site allowing us to pay someone to do a lot more grunt work – as it is about 20-25 hours a week goes into maintaining the site and thats not including new areas being developed. Because the site requires more or less daily updating, it gets hard to even go away for a weekend.

Only with an awful lot of work do they contain warts and all…. look at this proposal for Dun Laoghaire which was rejected…. there was actually a huge amount of modelling on this but it doesnt look like it…. getting a cg image to look perfect with all the authenticity is very hard unless your do a photomontage – like the model above.

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[This message has been edited by Paul Clerkin (edited 30 August 1999).]

Thanks to RoryW for forwarding this to me.

That was a skecth done by the architects in response to the Bord Pleanala decision on saving the extra building on Sth Leinster Street meaning a shorter elevation.

As you can see it’s fairly short and even heavy looking without the extra length provided by the next plot.

BTW, has anyone seen a proper image of the new facade?

And for those who want to see it, there is a model of the new building in the foyer of the NGI [until recently anyway, it may be gone].

Whats Walters Pub like?

I vaguely remember seeing a copy of that but I dont have it so Rory if you could oblige and post the image up, it would be great.

Building in question:

Perhaps if anyone from the design team is reading this, they’d like to comment on the design…..