Fingal County Council criticises College for “effectively sitting” on land it owns in Santry

SocDems Councillor Paul Melville raised the motion “to bring a sense of urgency” to the issue

Fingal County Council has agreed a motion to write to College to urge them to use residential zoned land that College owns in Santry which has been left empty for years.

Councillor Paul Mulville, from the Social Democrats, raised the motion before the council on January 16. Mulville also ran for a seat in the Trinity Seanad Panel elections, and spoke about the issue at College’s recent hustings event.

“A lot of people [at the hustings] were surprised to know that Trinity College owns residential zoned land in Santry”, he said, adding that “as councillors we have voted, I think twice now, to rezone the sports grounds in Santry for student accommodation”.

“The fact that the College hasn’t taken any steps to move forward on that land and is effectively sitting on that residential zone land just isn’t right”, Mulville said at council.

”We’re facing a student accommodation crisis, with students commuting very long distances [and] paying exorbitant rates for substandard accommodation. We need to see this land being developed for low-cost student accommodation”.

Councillor Dean Mulligan, a member of Clare Daly’s Independents4Change party, seconded the motion. He lamented the practice of “zoning for the sake of zoning” without any actionable building in mind.

”I would urge Trinity College to use the land, because we have a housing crisis across the country”, he said, before focusing on Santry: “We have land zoned in an area that has the infrastructure [to support it], which most areas which are being built on sadly don’t have”.

In a statement to Trinity News, College said that “the university is currently undertaking a master plan study of its Estate and will consider its options for Santry as part of this exercise”.

”Our preference for student accommodation development remains to expand our Dartry site, for which we currently have planning consent for and in common with other universities, have sought Government funding to support its delivery”, they concluded.

In 2016, consultants acting on behalf of College wrote to Fingal County Council asking for an “alternative zoning classification” to be applied to their Santry land, saying that “[Trinity] currently faces significant challenges in increasing its student housing provision, with an additional 2,000 bed spaces required by 2019”.

College began to buy land in Santry in 1972, and has since built a sports ground and the library book depository in the area. Located in Dublin 9, a similar student accommodation site of 0.57 acres and 221 bedrooms has recently been brought to the market for €7.5 million.

Stephen Conneely

Stephen Conneely is the Deputy Editor of Trinity News in its 71st volume, and is a Senior Sophister student of Modern Languages. He previously served as Deputy News Analysis Editor and Correspondent for Unions.