Issue 9 January/February 1999

Issue 9 January/February 1999 Welcome to the Open Day to view the exhibition of the first new homes in the new town. Building the new town of Ballymun is a far bigger undertaking than just demolishing the high rise flat blocks and replacing them with new homes. The new town will need a centre for people to come to do business and shop. It also needs industries to suit the skills of the people living in the area. Bringing salaries into the area is vital if the new town is to have a bright, economic future. A lot has been achieved already. Five new neighbourhoods are being created in Ballymun, each with its own identity, its own local facilities and its own parks and leisure facilities - as well as new homes. The roundabout on Ballymun Road is to go and be replaced by a new Main Street for Ballymun. It will have shops, offices and major services like Dublin Corporation s Regional Offices, a new Garda Station and the Arts and Community Resource Centre, as well as the shopping centre, due to expand onto the street. the area who want to live in Ballymun are likely purchasers. Prices will range from 70,000 to 120,000 depending on size, location and type of unit. Anyone interested should contact us for further details. We were determined that the new homes would be top quality and that the people who will live in them would be actively involved in their design. Thirteen top architectural practices have designed the new homes, with lots of input from the representatives of the five Ballymun Area Forums, adjoining communities and the people for whom the homes are being built. Depending on the planning process, we hope to be able to look for tenders from builders and begin building in the summer. In the meantime, we are already planning Phases 2 and 3. I would like to thank everyone who has given so generously of their time and expertise to the project. I look forward to working with you over the coming years to complete the new town. Ciarán Murray MANAGING DIRECTOR BALLYMUN REGENERATION LTD. That s all in addition to the top quality homes being designed for Dublin Corporation s tenants, for other people who may have left Ballymun in the past, because there were no homes to buy in the area and for first time buyers who want to live in Ballymun. Since the M50 was built, Ballymun has come to be recognised as a very good location. It s right beside the airport and the motorway and less than five miles from O Connell Street, with LUAS coming to the area shortly. Planning permission is currently being sought for 650 new homes in Phase 1 of the development. There will be approximately 70 houses and apartments available to buy. Tenants who are not due to get a new home in Phase 1 and people from outside

Familiar Dublin architecture with a modern touch MacCormac Jamieson Prichard s site bounds the new Coultry Park, and its North east end forms the gateway into the Park from the new link road off Santry Avenue. The gently curving terrace has side roads off it leading to the existing homes on Coultry Way, a new road linking to Shangan Road, and a new cul-de-sac of houses overlooking the grounds of the Virgin Mary School. The houses overlooking Coultry Park are all three storey high - some are three bedroom houses, and some are clusters of two bedroom apartments. The houses overlooking the school are all two storeys high with wide frontage. They include three bedroom houses and some two bedroom apartments. MacCormac Jamieson Prichard have tried to capture some of the familiar architectural elements of Dublin, with front railings, stone steps up to front doors, and mostly red brickwork for the elegant terrace overlooking the park. The cul-de-sac is a simple row of two storey terraced houses with feature chimney stacks. Creating a place where people choose to live The new road linking Coultry to Shangan, comes out by the Virgin Mary Church on Shangan Road. It will be the start of the new Shangan neighbourhood in Ballymun. The road has been carefully thought out to ensure that it is safe and feels friendly for pedestrians. There is a new footway linking through from Shangan Green to the National School, to the north of the Priest s House. On each side of the road are 2 and 3 storey houses and flats ( 95 homes in total for this phase). New homes for families are houses with traditional front and rear gardens. There are also a small number of apartments for single people or couples, and single storey homes which can be adapted for older people or wheelchair users. All homes will have a simple mix of brickwork and render to the elevations, with double glazed windows, high insulation standards, and pitched roofs. Responding to residents concerns, each house has: The layout of the apartments also reflects residents priorities: All of these simple points have been brought together to make a new road which will be a pleasure to walk along and a place where people will choose to live.

The houses and apartments designed by Ballymun Regeneration's in-house team of architects, are along the west side of Coultry Way and Shangan Park. They form a new edge to the park and the park will be redeveloped with new railings and landscaping. There is a mix of 49 family houses and 11 apartments, on a 4 acre (1.688 hectares) site beside schemes designed by two of the other architectural firms. It's a big site, connecting a new area with an existing one. The design reflects the scale and density of the existing area. At the same time, it relates well to the new area being designed by MacCormac, Jamieson Prichard and the homes on the new road linking Coultry to Shangan, being designed by Levitt Bernstein Associates. The buildings are mainly two storey, with a few three storey for larger families. All have front and rear gardens. Some have their own driveways and others have on-street parking. The apartments are grouped in two or three units on corner sites. Each has its own front door, giving direct access from the street and they each have access to a private open space to the rear. Apartments on the upper floor have their own private balcony. All the houses have large living rooms, a kitchen/dining room and downstairs WC. Upstairs there are two/three and four bedrooms, depending on the house size. The houses range from 80 sq metres (860 sq feet) to 104 sq metres (1,120 sq ft). The apartments are from 50 sq metres (550 sq ft) to 60 sq metres (660 sq ft). The designs have steep pitched roofs with a mix of brickwork and coloured plaster walls. The colours will be chosen in consultation with the people who will live in the new homes. There are three short pedestrian priority cul de sacs within the scheme. Attractive designs in a secluded cul de sac This is a housing scheme of 19 dwellings organised around a small courtyard and accessed off the new local Green. Most are houses - two-story three-bedroom houses along the two (north and south) sides of the courtyard and three one story houses and four two storey houses along the (east) side backing onto Shanliss Avenue. The corner buildings onto the Green are apartments with small private garden/yard areas. Back gardens are all private and do not adjoin the public areas. The courtyard is a pedestrian area with a variety of hard surfaces and individual trees. Residents can drive across the courtyard to individual on-site parking for each house. The apartments have two bedrooms. All have their own ground floor front doors - there are no shared staircases. The two-story houses have their own entrance gateway, private front garden and entrance canopy leading into a hallway. The sitting and dining areas open from front to back of the house, so all living areas benefit from direct sun. The kitchen/dining can be separated off from the sitting area. Upstairs there are three bedrooms. There is a downstairs WC in all the houses. Back gardens to the houses are a minimum depth of approximately 10 metres (33 feet) - front gardens are approximately 4.7 metres (15 feet). The front boundary walls are brick, the main facades to the house are plastered with small areas of cedar boarding. The roofs are pitched and possibly finished with standing seam metal roof - similar to a copper roof, but the colour is grey. Windows are all double glazed high performance timber stained with a tilt and turn mechanism - allowing good controllable ventilation.

Spacious Development for centre of Shangan This scheme is in the centre of a development in Shangan, designed by three firms of architects. McCrossan O Rourke s scheme consists of 24 two and three storey dwellings. The 3 bedroom houses are arranged in two terraces of eight, 3 storeys high and linked by a curved Knuckle to two 4 bedroom, 2 storey houses. At the north eastern end of the site, there is a further curved block linking the scheme to the adjoining Phase. It consists of two 2/3 bedroom houses and and four 2 bedroom apartments. Each of the houses has a small private area to the front and a large rear garden. The development designed by Derek Tynan Architects is at the south-west corner of the Shangan site. It is accessed off the new road to be constructed behind the existing blocks 33-56 and 57-88. The development is arranged along the new road and around a cul-de-sac, and comprises of 23 units. These are mostly 2/3 storey houses with 2 or 3 bedrooms. There are 6 apartments with 2 bedrooms and one storey homes for people who have disabilities or special needs. The scale of the development has been largely dictated by the need to avoid overlooking existing low rise housing. A minimum of 12 metres has been kept between the rear of the new houses and the boundary garden wall with the existing housing. Each dwelling overlooks an allocated car-parking space and each house has a garden to the rear. The common space in the cul-de-sac is overlooked by all the dwellings and provides access on foot and by car through one entrance off the new road. The houses have separate sitting and dining rooms, with kitchens partially separated from the dining rooms. The houses are each entered from the brick porch which creates a zone between the public path and the facade of the house. The porch leads into a hall with stairs to the upper floors and access through to the other rooms. Each dwelling has a downstairs toilet under the stairs. Dwellings will be well insulated and double-glazed. The windows are to be treated hardwood frames, the walls generally rendered except at the ground floor to the front, where timber and brick cladding is to be used.

Homes Designed for a Lifetime Gilroy McMahon s scheme on the south side of Santry Avenue, opposite Trinity Grounds/Santry Woods is part of a combined development of 60 homes in three separate cul de sacs. This scheme consists of 30 homes; two storey houses and three storey apartments. The houses are arranged in terraces of four, while the apartments are located at either end of the row, acting as "bookends" to the scheme. Particular care has been taken to make the design suitable for "lifetime occupancy". Room arrangements are flexible and can be adapted to suit changing family circumstances at different stages. The houses have two/three bedrooms and the living rooms open onto private south facing gardens. The kitchen is separate and also faces south. It overlooks the drive way. All the apartments at ground and first floor have "own door access" and the pairs of apartments at second floor are accessed by stairs. The higher apartments will have spectacular views of the Dublin Mountains. The smaller bedroom in the apartments is arranged so it can be easily combined with the living area, to form a much larger space, if needed. This is a scheme of thirty 2, 3 and 4 bedroomed houses, on a site shared with Gilroy mcmahon Architects. The combined scheme consists of 3 traffic-controlled cul-de-sacs, each containing a grouping of about 20 houses. Site features include a pedestrian parkland entrance at the east end, perimeter paths with pergolas separating the cul-de-sacs, a children s playground and a large safe play area. The houses are broad-fronted with living rooms to the south and wide rear gardens adjoining the present back gardens of the Coultry Estates. The houses have mono-pitch roofs and are extendible to the rear for future increases in family sizes. The walls are red-brick with natural timber windows. The house layouts have been developed in association with Ballymun Regeneration Ltd. and the residents representatives. Extensive landscaping is also planned for the development.

This development at Sillogue/Sandyhill proposes creating two new open spaces as part of the scheme for the use of the residents. The first is a small grassed park with semi-mature trees and perimeter railings on Belclare Crescent. The second, creates a small square in the heart of the site, around which are new dwellings and from which a new traffic-calmed road connects to both Sandyhill and Belclare. Two practices, M. V. Cullinan Architects and Gerry Cahill Architects, are designing the new homes. Michael Cullinan, working on the area closest to Balbutcher Lane, has provided two alternate designs for the houses on the Belclare and Sillogue/Balbutcher edges. The latter are brick houses with front gardens following the new road line. Along Belclare Crescent, are a mixture of brick and plaster facades with a mix of large and small front gardens. Along with the new park, the gardens provide variety and screening for the new development, when seen from the Belclare estate. In total there are 42 dwellings in the M. V. Cullinan Architects Section; Each has its own private back garden, accessible from the rear of the houses. Off street parking is provided for most dwellings, predominantly located in the front gardens. Alternatively, cars can be parked on road spaces immediately in front of the house. Gerry Cahill Architects are providing a variety of homes and apartments on the southern portion of the site, with private gardens to the front and rear, with space for car parking to the front. Apartments define entrances to the centre of the site at the ends of the housing terraces. The houses and apartments create a central paved space, accessed by traffic calmed roads from both Belclare Road and Sandyhill Avenue. The cental open space will be partially planted and paved in continuity with the access roads and will form the communal heart of the site.

There are many existing problems associated with the courtyard housing in Poppintree. The archways at the Court entrances, the exposed rear gardens, the laneways and the pedestrian routes through the houses all create security problems. The visual appearance from the outside, particularly of the rear garden walls can be very unattractive, as can some of the Courts. Fionnuala Rogerson Architects have proposed a solution for Dolmen Court which involves closing off the pedestrian routes through the Courts so that each group of 12 houses has its own private entrance. There will be new single storey houses around the perimeter protecting the access points to the back garden laneways and creating new attractive entrances to the Courts. There will also be new 2 storey houses around the perimeter and on the playground. A comprehensive landscaping scheme for the Courts will be developed in conjunction with the residents. Ten new houses are to be built on the triangular site between Belclare Drive and Belclare Crescent. These will be part brick fronted, single and two storey in height and will have two, three and four bedrooms. They have been designed to Lifetime Housing standards, allowing for easy access and use by people of all ages, both disabled and able bodied. They have also been designed so that they can be readily adapted for people as they grow older, allowing them to say longer in their own homes. The new houses will protect the exposed back gardens to the houses on Belclare Crescent and the problem with the ESB sub station will be dealt with by building a new brick wall around it and incorporating it into the side garden of one of the new homes. This scheme consists of 71 dwellings at Poppintree on the existing open space bounded by the realigned Balbutcher Lane to the south, and the senior citizens housing at Burren Court to the north. off Carrig Road and to the east off Dane Road. A small park in the centre of the scheme is bounded by a curved wall with railings to the front, two and three storey housing to the sides and single storey to the rear. The development will include the erection of railings and gates surrounding Burren Court for security purposes. Access gates will be placed on to the two cul-de-sacs, the park and various locations near the existing community room. The higher buildings will form part of a curved red brick wall facing south on to Balbutcher Lane and will have sunny balconies at higher levels and private courtyards which give access to the individual dwellings. The heights reduce to single storey close to the senior citizens dwellings. These lower dwellings are placed around short cul-de-sacs to the west

This scheme of 47 houses and 10 apartments will provide a strong new identity for the Balcurris neighbourhood. O Mahony Pike have created flexible and expandable housing units, with secure public areas and streets that are overlooked by the new homes. A pedestrian link through the area is secure and overlooked. Where existing and new houses co-exist, new public spaces will be landscaped and have new play areas. There will also be a new enclosed park, with amenities. Draw for long term tenants The homes on display here are the First Phase of building the new town of Ballymun. There will be a number of further phases, over the next six to eight years, until all the residents of the existing flats have a new home. The families moving into the Phase 1 new homes will come from Pearse and McDonagh Towers, 57-120 Shangan Avenue, 73-96 Sillogue Avenue, 1-48 Sandyhill Avenue, Block D Coultry Road and Block E Balcurris Road, to be demolished next year. All existing tenants of flats for 15 years or more in Ballymun were eligible to apply to enter a draw to be included in the First Phase new homes. There are 30 homes available for the tenants who qualify to be in the Draw. The first thirty names pulled out in the Draw today will be allocated the tenancy of a home, according to family size and the relocation policy drawn up by Ballymun Regeneration Limited and Dublin Corporation. Good Luck in the Draw. YOU CAN CONTACT US AT: Ballymun Regeneration Limited Telephone : (01) 842 1144 Fax: (01) 842 1443 email: brl@brl.ie Website: http: //www.brl.ie