THEY WILL BE OUR NEWEST TOWN S... BUT WILL THE SAME OLD MISTAKES STILL BE MADE?
Amenities and infrastructure are crucial if new suburbs are to thrive, residents say
A DUBLIN suburb became the subject of international media attention in 2008 after the building of the new ‘designer’ town was halted, leaving hundreds of homes vacant.
Construction for the country’s youngest town, Adamstown, was paused at the time after the developers were forced to pull funding following the economic crash.
Residents in the already standing 1,400 homes were left with just a Londis shop and a dry cleaner as local amenities for ten years.
Independent South Dublin County Councillor Paul Gogarty said: ‘The initial houses were left in a frozen world. With Adamstown, the [advertising] picture 13 years ago was, “central location, shops, cinema coming soon”. People felt like they’d been sold a pup.’
But in 2016, the construction cogs began to whir again with fresh investment from American property developer Quintain.
Today, residents strongly reject the media’s labelling of Adamstown as a ‘ghost town’ and insist it’s a wonderful place to live, despite its less than perfect past.
But with the State’s announcement of two brand new towns on the edge of Dublin, Adamstown is pushed back into the spotlight as old scars of slow development are reopened.
The City Edge Project, recently announced by Dublin County Council and South Dublin County Council, pledges to bring 40,000 new homes for an estimated population of 85,000 by 2070, and it will ultimately be car-free.
Clonburris, the second town, has been in the pipeline for 20 years but Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien pledged €186million towards its development in July.
‘You can’t just throw houses in’
Clonburris neighbours Adamstown and is also a designated Strategic Development Zone (SDZ), so they will both follow the same planning scheme. But many are worried about the building of another ‘designer’ town that uses the Adamstown blueprint because of the way the infrastructure and amenities have been rolled out.
Mr Gogarty said he is concerned that developers will be able to build Clonburris with even fewer infrastructure commitments.
The former Green Party TD said: ‘I’m sceptical as to whether all the checks and balances have been put in place to ensure that you have sustainable communities who have amenities alongside the housing.
‘You can’t just throw houses in and then let a community kind of develop in a haphazard way.’
Adamstown has 13 phases whereas Clonburris has four phases of construction, though Mr Gogarty worries this means more houses can be built without the appropriate legal framework. He said the danger with Clonburris having four development phases is that up to 2,000 houses can be built with no real community facilities.
Mr Gogarty added: ‘Over 200 houses have been granted for phase one of Clonburris but they won’t have a shop for ages.’
Jon Connelly, 47, remembers watching the initial construction of Adamstown from his home in neighbouring Finnstown. ‘People were moving in and there was only one shop to serve the population. I’m a big one for building houses but if you don’t have the infrastructure, what’s the point?’
He added that construction of Clonburris will ‘add to the traffic chaos’ caused by Adamstown.
Local Labour councillor Joanna Tuffy warned that people moving into SDZs such as Adamstown and Clonburris must manage their expectations.
‘For people who buy early on, the infrastructure won’t be there – but the basics will be,’ she said.
Under the terms of the SDZ, certain infrastructure is required – for example, two primary schools – before another tranche of houses can be built.
Ms Tuffy said: ‘People are waiting to get what they were promised but it doesn’t work like that. A developer’s not just going to go and build all the infrastructure first. They’d go bankrupt.’ She said the developers need the money from selling houses in Adamstown to build more infrastructure.
In 2012, Maplewood Developments, co-developer with Castlethorn Developments, went into liquidation owing more than €300million to its creditors. Castlethorn Developments went on to sell the rest of its land to Quintain in 2021.
Ms Tuffy said a major difference between Adamstown and Clonburris is that the council owns a third of Clonburris’ land – which means more social and affordable housing.
‘That means the council can have more control over what happens and that it isn’t left to developers.’
A resident of Adamstown, Samjeeb Barik, said he was ‘absolutely delighted’ when Castlethorn sold the land to Quintain because of issues the residents had with Castlethorn Developers. Mr Barik bought his house in Adamstown in 2007. He went to the council with other residents.
‘We said: “I’m worried because I bought the house for these reasons and you promised a community centre, a shopping centre, but what happened?” Now they are building again. Lots of our friends have moved here and we have a community centre.’
The two remaining problems, according to Mr Barik, are infrastructure and traffic. This is particularly important for parents of young children. Adamstown and the surrounding estates’ relatively affordable prices attract couples starting their families. But with
this baby boom comes childcare problems. Couples with children make-up 40% of the population of Adamstown but there is only one functioning creche for infants.
One couple feeling the squeeze is Gearóid and Aishling Buckley, both 36, who struggled to find a creche for their four-year-old son Teddy.
The Adamstown creche reached its maximum capacity of 76 places and Gearóid said: ‘We tried the whole area but it’s been challenging.’
The Buckleys live on the outskirts of Adamstown in the Gandon Park estate but, with another baby on the way, they are considering moving closer to family to help with childcare. One month in a creche costs €1,050 per child helped by a 50c per hour State subsidy which Aishling said ‘is pretty miserable’.
As the Adamstown creche was full, they found a space for Teddy at a creche in Liffey Valley – 15 minutes’ drive away.
Still, Aishling said: ‘We like living here. There’s lots of babies and young children and a real sense of community.’
Aishling thinks many families are in the same situation. Under the SDZ plan there need to be at least 565 childcare places by the time the whole of Adamstown is built, with an eventual 9,000 houses.
Gearóid said: ‘The SDZ regulations provide security. Yes, we know creches and facilities are lacking right now but at least we know they’re coming. If you live in a small town and they build a big estate, no one is thinking about childcare, whereas we have it in the plan.’