The bull in Dartmouth Sq

Mad Finn

Just south of the canal, on the stretch between Leeson St and Ranelagh.

In Dublin.

Femelade

oh right...so this thread should be in the DUBLIN forum then....
come on Ruu, you're killing me here...

Ruu_Old

Report it if it needs to be moved, I'm not here 24hrs a day. Help us, help you, Femmy.
Mods feel free to move it back to me if you wish.

Mad Finn

Well I can see why you've moved it but I would respectfully say that this is a general issue of wider importance than can be accomodated on a Dublin only forum.

As I've said ad nauseum, this issue is not just about the residents of Dartmouth Square and the solution to it should not just look after their interests, although we can acknowledge that they are centrally involved.

It's about the value of free space as an amenity and how it should be acquired and allocated. Granted, this is more of an issue in Dublin, as the nation's capital, and most densely populated city. But as property prices start to bite in places like Galway, Limerick and even Cork the chances of any available green space being grabbed by speculators for their own aggrandisement at the expense of the local environment will rise accordingly.

There is nothing worse than miles and miles of building and streets with no available space for respite. Concrete jungles are terrible places. Most well designed cities tend to be liberally populated with parks, open spaces and other amenities on which it is forbidden to build.

London for example has loads of Commons and parks which are there for the local populace to enjoy. Most old European cities are designed around piazzas and plazas and the idea of some muck savage grabbing them to build condominiums on them would be anathema.

Dublin is particularly badly served in this regard, largely because of the corruption of our planning regime which resulted in a former minister for justice going to jail. Tallaght is just miles and miles of housing estates with few local shops or amenities like pubs, football pitches, parks etc. What green space there is seems to be a dumping ground for burned out cars. This is not meant to be snobby; it's just a valid observation.

Other areas in North Dublin are similarly deprived. Loads of streets; no parks or gardens. Once a piece of land gets built up--that's it. It becomes somebody's house or business. To turn it back into green space you have to buy them out at house-price rates. So it's vital to keep what open space we have, particularly in city centres and keep it accessible to all.

If every piece of green space is to be treated as a development site, there won't be a playground, football pitch or patch of grass left in our cities. And the poorest areas will suffer the most.

And this will quickly become a problem outside of Dublin.It could even become a problem in Cork. And then we'll see the chips on the shoulders come tumbling down and suffocating us.

comer_97

I take offense at your remarks about Tallaght. Tallaght was badly planned, that is a fact and the building that is going on isn't exactly making things worse.

But having lived in Tallaght and lived within a 5 minute walk of 2 parks, and within 30 minutes walk of 4 or 5 more, having trained for marathons in a lot of greenspace in Tallaght.


Tallaght was badly planned but there is no shortage of parks and football pitches etc.

Mad Finn

comer_97 wrote:

I take offense at your remarks about Tallaght. Tallaght was badly planned, that is a fact and the building that is going on isn't exactly making things worse.

But having lived in Tallaght and lived within a 5 minute walk of 2 parks, and within 30 minutes walk of 4 or 5 more, having trained for marathons in a lot of greenspace in Tallaght.

Tallaght was badly planned but there is no shortage of parks and football pitches etc.

Well I'm glad to hear it and I wasn't having a go at anything other than the bad planning. I will be the first to admit I know little about Tallaght as I live nowhere near it. My impression, from pictures etc, is that it is just mile after mile of housing estate with few amenities.

Fair play to you if you've got 'em.

Even more if you had to fight to get 'em.

Miguel_Sanchez

Did anyone hear the interview the guy at the centre of this whole thing did with Matt Cooper about two weeks back?

He claims that he's had four properties taken off him by compulsory purhcase. This seems quite strange to me, what are the odds?

Also in the middle of the interview he started talking about how he knew who the real Yorkshire Ripper is and where he lives and how the guy in prison in England was only a copy-cat who was not responsible for all the murders.

He's a strange guy.

Mad Finn

Jeff_Lebowski wrote:

Did anyone hear the interview the guy at the centre of this whole thing did with Matt Cooper about two weeks back?

He claims that he's had four properties taken off him by compulsory purhcase. This seems quite strange to me, what are the odds?

Also in the middle of the interview he started talking about how he knew who the real Yorkshire Ripper is and where he lives and how the guy in prison in England was only a copy-cat who was not responsible for all the murders.

He's a strange guy.

Strange? He's a loony tunes. But that doesn't mean he's a fool. He's deadly serious about screwing DoCiCo out of as much cash as possible and he doesn't care who he upsets to do it. He has tried to position himself as the little guy taking on the wealthy pampered citizens of Dartmouth Square when in fact he is wealthier than most if not all of them. (And not all people living in that area are wealthy. There was a time not so long ago when that area was run down and considered a bad investment property wise. Believe it or not)

As for his Ripper fixation. He has been at that for years. Some unkind people might even say this is all part of a publicity campaign for a book he has written on the subject (published privately by himself, no self-respecting publisher would touch it) in which he claims the Real Ripper was a former employee of his.

You can read all about it here if you must. BTW click on the Author tab and then the My Story tab to see a picture of the palatial pile Mr O'Gara lives in before you start having any sympathies for the 'little guy'.

As for his compulsory purchases, which he says were never honoured by Dublin City Council. That should be a separate issue. If the council genuinely owes him money there are more effective ways of redeeming it than pissing off an entire neighbourhood. And good luck to him if that's the case.

But take caution: he is a known ground rent speculator. In other words, he buys up ground rents from old estates and then approaches the owners of houses on those lands to buy out the lease.

As I understand it, if you own a house you have a legal right to purchase the ground lease back from the landowner. But many of these ground rents are nominal. Less than 100 euro a year. So many householders just pay the old ground rents without batting an eyelid. Until the likes of Mr O'Gara come along and say 'I'm the new lease holder. Buy me out for a few grand or I can put up the lease significantly when it comes to renewal time' So he invites 'compulsory purchases' of what he owns.

This is all perfectly legal, of course. Just a bit ruthless. And not the typical actions of a 'little guy'.

Google Noel O'Gara and Ground rent and you'll find some interesting stuff.