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The state-owned Land Development Agency is to pay the National Asset Management Agency €40M as it plans up to 2,500 affordable homes at Clongriffin, north County Dublin.
In what will be the biggest single state housing project in decades, building costs are estimated at €1.2B to provide cost-rental apartments, with rents typically set 30% below market rates.
The deal will see the LDA buy a 24.7-acre property that was under the control of developer Gerry Gannon, a NAMA client who tried to sell the land two years ago. The agency will also buy land surrounded by the Gannon properties that were controlled by another NAMA client, Barina Construction, which is in receivership.
The LDA will not be on-site for another year and must go to public tender for the building work, according to the Irish Times.
Established in 2018 to develop homes on state land, the LDA will pay NAMA up to €45M for the two properties, and the transaction is the first between the two organisations and the first in which the LDA is acquiring privately owned land for housing.
The Gannon site has planning permission for 1,823 homes and a 209-bedroom hotel in a stalled development known as Project Capital North, previously valued at €50M. The 15-block project includes permission for more than 236.8K SF of commercial space, plus a further 700 homes on the Barina land parcel.
The LDA and Dublin City Council also announced in June the launch of a public consultation process for a proposed new development of over 1,100 homes at Cherry Orchard in Dublin.
Cherry Orchard Point will include cost-rental, social and affordable purchase housing for a total of 1,131 homes and over 250K SF of retail and community space.
The proposals are being developed in partnership with DCC on greenfield land owned by the local authority beside Park West Avenue and the Park West and Cherry Orchard railway station.
In June, NAMA reported a post-tax profit of €81M for 2022, representing its 12th consecutive year of profitability. The profit reflects the ongoing reduction in the size of the "bad bank" NAMA loan portfolio, which stood at €500M at the end 2022, less than 2% of the value of €32B paid by NAMA to acquire the loans when it was established.
The agency said that it remains on course to deliver its projected lifetime surplus of €4.5B, subject to market conditions.
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