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DUBLIN’S BALLYMUN FLATS were a “really great idea” – but the project was always doomed to fall into decline because of poor planning and government policies.
The city’s chief architect, Ali Grehan, delivered that assessment today at an Ibec CEO Conference themed around design.
In her talk about planning “competitive cities”, Grehan, who was previously head designer with the Ballymun Regeneration company, said the estate was built around a good concept – to construct a new town in response to a housing crisis.
“Unfortunately the approach adopted was singular – it was to create good quality homes and I think the homes created were good quality – but it was an urban design failure,” she said.
“Like so many estates built around the world at the time it was 100% public housing – 5,000 homes constructed around a roundabout … a dead end.”
Best-laid plans
Work first started on the first Ballymun project in 1965 and it was initially planned to include about 3,000 homes – the vast majority of which would be flats in Ireland’s first high-rise, out-of-centre public housing scheme.
A town centre with shops and other amenities was supposed to be built in time for the earliest waves of tenants, but the construction was delayed for years and residents were left without some basic services.
The development was also plagued with failures including lift faults, heating problems and claims Dublin City Council wasn’t keeping up with the general maintenance backlog.
But Grehan said the “killer blow” for the project came in 1985 when “with the best intentions” the government brought in a scheme to encourage public-housing tenants to buy their own homes.
“Unfortunately, in Ireland, if you live in a flat as a public tenant you cannot buy that flat, you can buy a house,” she said.
“So anybody in Ballymun flats who wanted to buy had to move out – they had to move to a house and buy a house. So that started a cycle of decline and in 1997 we decided to redevelop Ballymun.”
Going, going…
The original Ballymun towers have been progressively demolished since 2004 and now only the Joseph Plunkett tower still stands, although its last tenants have gradually been shifted out.
They were replaced with low-rise developments for a broader mix of tenants, although there remain problems with general upkeep, vandalism and delays in providing local amenities.
Construction of a planned €800 million shopping centre to service the area was supposed to be finished two years ago but the process stalled after the developer went under in 2008.
Grehan said this time the council had tried to design the housing “properly in every aspect” taking into account physical, economic, social and cultural considerations.
“Hopefully this time the development will last for more than 30 years … and Ballymun can achieve its strategic potential in the place it occupies, which is this golden rectangle from the airport to the city centre.”
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Kinda off topic but it always amazes me how proud the generation before ours ie (1950-1970′s) who lived in traditional working class areas were of their homes and surrounding areas and how people pulled in the same direction to make sure the area was kept clean and well maintained…it wouldnt have been unusual for people to sweep the road outside of thier homes for example. It is a shame that mentality seems to have deserted modern society.
It is the mentality in Ireland that everything is “somebody else’s job” – same goes for businesses in any town or city centre…dirty pavements outside their premises. Walk around Manhattan for example early in the morning and you have shopkeepers and restaurants hosing, washing and sweeping the street outside their business….yes it does happen and I have seen it. Also dog owners “clean up” after their dog makes a mess which is another debate…..
Litigation culture arrival didn’t help.
Personally speaking, I see most of what you speak of as the councils / mgmt companies job – that’s what I’m now paying homeowner tax and management company charge for – so sweep my path!! :)
Ah yeah but you never know like what it is like
Tony Tee in the 50s-70s people were not as mobile as they are now.Consequently a community spirit existed with grandparents,parents and relatives living nearer each other. If I did something wrong by the time I got home my mother already knew about it thanks to the neigherbours.Nowadays there is little or no community spirit, drugs have become a huge issue fuelling a lot of criminality with a police force that is disappearing by the day thanks to government policy!
I would imagine that the easy availability of cheap heroin caused a lot of problems for the people of Ballymun from the late 1970′s onwards
If you want to start spouting common sense, you can do it somewhere else.
Cheap heroin was a city wide problem, the south city flat complexes were the worst of the lot.
As the article says Ballymun was put up with no amenities. There was also no infrastructure in place where all these people could gain employment in the locality. The whole project was a disaster.
Now at the heart of the regeneration there is an empty abandoned shopping centre and an empty field across the road where the new shopping centre never got started.
There is a housing list in Dublin city that’s through the roof while empty flats lie abandoned. They could have easily been retrofitted but they’re gone beyond that now.
Ballymun is an absolute disgrace. The people have been let down by poor planning and a lack of amenities twice.
We created a culture where people expected to be handed a house for free, without having to work for it. THAT was the mistake.
Steve there is more working people in social housing than un employed people including me, so your prejudice falls down there.
I think If you earn under €35,000 you can apply for social housing.
You start paying the higher rate of tax around then as well so it’s like they’re encouraging people not to get better paid jobs. If you were on 35 grand and got a promotion at work for example you’d be kicked off the housing list and have to pay 50% tax on your extra income.
Giving someone a house for nothing , removes the incentive to work any harder or better themselves. Hence ending up with generational dependence on welfare, and poverty traps. I stand by my statement. If anything, a Social housing solution should be temporary only.
How is it s free house if I pay rent, a free house is a house that was passed down from parents to their children… Steve if a person is unemployed or disabled then they are entitled to benefits.
Nothing wrong with social housing per se, though why a time limit is not put on leases mystifies me.
Also those container homes are a good temporary idea. And we could build a gurrier town for trouble makers.
Personally I think the regeneration has been a disaster
Why don’t people take responsibility for their own area ??
They were given a free house or flat and some free welfare money and years later when the area is in ruins they blame everyone else and the government.
Nice avatar.
Yeah thought about that before.
Don’t believe in the whole imaginary friend thing.just a nice pic of Ireland.
When you work hard for something , you appreciate it more .. Get something for nothing and you don’t give a damn.
Because it was free. Social welfare has great intentions but it has a very negative side effect that a lot of people refuse to acknowledge.
People need to earn their living. Taking money from those that work and giving it to those who don’t doesn’t work as intended.
I remember when I was young my dream was to live in one of the top flats in one of the Ballymun towers!
Funny how all over the world there are hi rise developments people have to pay to live in and there are none of the problems that were experienced in Ballymun or the projects in other cities. The common denominator is sadly the type of people living in them.
Larry,
Sorry, you’re wrong. Look at the examples given by Anne Marie and myself in other posts. Most social high rise developments have/had problems with both decent people and not so decent. Of course there are more social problems and crime where there are low incomes.
WTF Larry? Like where?
Similar situation with Glasgow really, massive flats like Red Road and the Wyndford were built in order to ease overcrowding in tenements. These were build in areas first before services such as shops and schools were provided. Not sure why we didn’t see this coming with Ballymun but when do we ever learn from planning mistakes here.
Ann Marie
You make a good point here. Why can’t Governments and local authorities learn from the mistakes made by others. What makes them think the results will be different and what didn’t work for example in Glasgow or Leeds would work in Bakkymun or Tower Hamlets. Beyond my comprehension.
Castlemilk was another disaster, one of the largest housing projects in Western Europe at the time and people were reduced to buying milk and bread from vans acting as commodity shops across the estates after the whole thing was finished. It was primarily accommodated to move people out of the Gorbals. It was like shops and amenities were only an afterthought in the minds of the genius city planners at Glasgow Corporation. There was plenty of time to learn from these mistakes in the UK as many of those projects were build in the 50s and early 60s before Ballymun. Limerick to a certain extent had a large scale building of low density housing to combat the awful conditions in the city centre, hence why Southill / Ballinacurra etc became sprawl. Funnily enough though, old high rises like Trellick Tower in Westbourne Park and the high rises around Royal Oak in London are actually sought after property now (I think Trellick is a protected building) but this is probably more to do with the area they both happen to be situated in West London and their proximity to town.
Not having a go, but do we really believe that having a newsagent and a bus would stop crime or prevent estates becoming dumps?
No but making people feel part of an area by putting in amenities and keeping the place in general order might help. Ever hear of the broken window theory?
To be fair though, BWT has been pretty much made controversial but stop and search policing now too so maybe that isn’t the best point. But I think that if the areas were properly maintained, it may have helped ease social disorder.
Broken window theory had been completely debunked.
So it was “urban design failure”. I grew up in an area that was a private estate with no resources and we didn’t have anyway near the levels of crime and anti-social behavior. So a lot of the blame must go on the people in these areas also. When this is knocked down and something else is put in place is that solution going to be knocked down in 50 years also?
It is a recognised issue with social housing. Put a lot of poor and ill educated people together and you increase social issues. Add a criminal element who are most likely very similar backgrounds their criminality will spread. They literal end up with a different set of morals.
That is why social housing of this model will never work.
I grew up close to these type of areas and they were much better serviced for public facilities. We used to go into the areas to use them. Very common to be attacked going in and out. After one sports hall was vandalised we just disbanded the clubs and teams. Had good friends in the areas who went on to be successful but they freely admit the places were extremely violent and self destructive
Be nice if the regeneration was finally finished but highly unlikely
main problem = the people
problem = people like you painting all people living there with the same brush.
The problems with Ballymon was the people but not how you think. When the government let people but their social housing. It meant if you lived in the flats you couldn’t buy your home but if you got moved out into a house you could buy it cheaper than the open market.
As a result the people who would accept a flat were much lower on the housing list. The people who moved in were people with addiction and social issues. Suddenly you had buildings full of social issues but a smaller population in them making it hard to justify spending on maintenance.
So it was the people that caused the problem, some looking to own and others that needed better help. Either way pushing a lot of people together who have major social issues is never a good idea.
Knock all buildings down re- house all the residents in Howth and Malahide then sell off the place to Dublin airport for a new runway.
I don’t think they’d fit the profile of areas like Howth or Malahide.
Dear god no. It was enough of a headache to stop the Greens from developing a halting site in Howth. Thank Christ the financial crash happened when it did and put an end to any further thoughts of that.
Keep the lower class in low class areas. It gives them something to aim to get out of.
Great comment Gordon. Laughed out loud. Green thumb from me :-)
The problem with Ballymun then, and Ballymun now, and every other social housing project of it’s ilk, is the people that they put into it.
… you talking about me?
Good man Mark, can’t help noticing that one of your facebook pals is an old chum of mine from the mun, have ye ever mentioned what you think of him to his face?
Did’nt think so chief :)
Urban planning of such developments in the early mid sixties were an absolute disaster. Look at Divis in Belfast, Queenies Castle in Leeds, Graupenstadt in S. Berlin, the Corbusier developments in France and Germany. All well intended but ended up disasters possibly due to inadequate infrastructure with too high a population density.
Heavens no Jacinta, I’m talking about the well-to-do people that snuck into Ballymun to sh*t in your lift and throw nappies around the place.
And Ballymun is probably going to go this way again. I have lived over here for 2 years and the problems in the area still exist somewhat. Dublin city council has and still is failing the area. They promised to move out the minority bad element out of the area during redevelopment , which the had the power to do but did not. They let the shopping centre go to ruin and still not deliver the promised Spring Cross centre. It’s as though to me that Ballymun is out of sight of the city somewhat, so nots let worry about it. They honestly in my opinion don’t care about the area and its sad to see this. Everyone where I grew up on southside thought it was all the people in Ballymun where the problem the area was bad, but it is the small minority that the council have not dealt with to throw them out of the area as has been done where I came from
We seriously need an ironclad strategy for dealing with the minority bad element.
It really does only take one family to destroy the fabric of an entire community.
They are a law unto themselves with no fear of law.
I used to live in The Mun. The place was a kip. You’d be out walking and a dirty nappy would fall on your head … and the lifts (which never moved) were used as a jacks and to shoot yourself up in
And that just proves the point , that its the people who lives in the flats that created the problems . not everyone but most people
That’s true, sort of … when your living there, you don’t bother about things being clean anymore when your surrounded by filth!
@Jacinta… Is that why you piss in people’s gardens on the way home from the pub as you told us yesterday on another thread. So you haven’t changed then…
The Irish planning process, even to this day, is build the easiest option, when it’s done, wait and see what the problems are, then spend the next 20 years thinking of a solution.
Not only was creating a ghetto in the middle of nowhere a terrible idea, but they created a paradise for criminals and drug pushers.
Even Dublin city centre is a joke, you have the Irish Financial Services centre, supposed to be the business district of the city, our “wall street”, next door to decaying council housing, next door to 300k private apartments…it just doesn’t make any sense.
A real solution would be public / private partnership, where every single development in the country has to include 10% social housing, where people can be given homes within a community and not have dedicated 100% social housing communities built in fields out by the airport with a road out to it and then just leave it to police it’s self and provide no facilities.
I think all the inner city social housing flats should be demolished and build modern, taller, higher quality buildings by selling on the land for development with social and private residents mixed into the one building. It would make the city more aesthetically appealing and remove ghettos and “bad areas” as well as including people who need housing within a development for everybody and not gating them off into “flats” where they’re separate from everyone else.
Also, with the value of land all these inner city flats are on, the Government could make significant money out of the project whilst also providing much greater numbers of social and private housing for the city as well as cleaning up the city and giving us some nice buildings replacing some of the ugliest ones. Part of the problem though is we must embrace high rise, or at least semi-high rise in the city, as the sprawl out of the city is too much and it’s more cost effective to have densely populated areas with facilities than to have sparsely populated massive land mass all commuting to use the same facilities and the infrastructure required to enable that (road, rail, bus etc.)
A good example is the land mass of the greater Dublin area (commuter belts out to Kildare, Meath, Louth and Wicklow) is the same land mass as the city of Los Angles, but the population difference is 12 million versus 1.8 million – that should give an idea of how inefficient our use of space is…
The comparison with LA is ridiculous. The vast majority of the greater Dublin area is uninhabited farmland. If you compare the actual cities you’ll find Dublin is a lot more densely populated than LA.
Actually, the problem stems from a poor initial construction contract given to Cubitt Haden Sisk, no plan by the Corporation to manage the housing once built, and a lack of finances to provide landscaping etc.
My parents got a flat in Ballymun in the 70′s,both worked and we lived we my grandparents,they couldn’t afford a house so like so many went on a housing waiting list. I have many happy memories of the few years we lived there for..we had a lovely playground right behind our block,a cinema every weekend in a make shift cabin and a fab school…underfloor heating which my mother loved. We moved to Clondalkin then and it came with its own set of problems in lather years,but myself and my 2 sibhlings all went to college and all have different careers today,so growing up in 2 areas that had its share of drugs,robbed cars,crime and unemployment didn’t do us any harm…it’s all about how your parents rear you regardless of your environment!!!
She’s lying though her teeth, the house and apartments they built were often of shocking quality. The designs were rife with the type of barmy ideas that an architect only gets away with when they dont need the approval of the occupant/owner I should know, I lived in enough of them
But the real scandal is that the project cost more than twice the original figure and took twice as long as it should have. A lot of people did VERY well for themselves off that regeneration and I’ve no doubt if a light is ever shone on the whole project we’ll find shenanigans that would make ray burke blush
There are also a large number of people, myself included, who moved into Ballymun and purchased property here on the back of the regeneration project. Let’s be honest – we were sold a pup with poor quality houses & apartments, most now in massive negative equity. The developers are gone bust so there is no one to fund/fix structural and compliance issues but the owners. However I have witnessed more community spirit here than in any other area I have lived previously and Ballymun also has huge engagement in tidy towns with people out sweeping streets, painting hoardings and planting trees, flowers etc every summer akin to what we see in rural communities. This government and many before have made mistakes but until they are held accountable or rectify these issues the people in the community have no chance and clearly instead are subjected to ignorant small mindedness fueled by media stereo-typing.
To add insult to injury the great “Republican” responsible, Neil Blaney, called the towers after the signatories of the 1916 proclamation
*1917
I blame Ballydad myself lol.
Cement monoliths and a lack of green spaces never create good feelings?
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