IT’S seldom anyone celebrates the opening of a new housing development nowadays – but that’s what the residents in the Riverside Housing Co-operative in Loughlinstown, Co Dublin, will be doing when the Minister for Housing and Planning, Jan OSullivan officially opens the place they’ve called home since last summer.
Riverside is a mix of 49 one, two and three-bed apartments and duplexes in a striking building on the Wyattville Road. It was developed by NABCO (National Association of Building Co-operatives) in partnership with Dún Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and funding from DoE and cost €10.5 million to build. Some of its residents are buying their new homes, some are renting, and all have access to communal facilities for members, which are used, e,g, for before and after-school activities for children.
NABCO chief executive Niall OKeeffe is excited about the prospects for housing associations to help solve the country’s hlusing problems.
Since 1973, it has supported locally-owned and managed societies to meet their own housing need through self-help – but co-ops still provide only a fraction of the country’s homes.
It has a few exciting developments coming up . . .watch this space.
