Anyone know anything about Rutland Ct, the PPP which replaced Mountainview flats?

hatrickpatrick

Some of ye might remember the Mountain View flats complex on Summerhill Parade / Buckingham Street. It was one of the familiar 1970s DCC developments, in the same style as those on Dominick Street, Fitzgibbon Court, Matt Talbot Court etc. It was torn down in the mid-2000s - for reasons I'm not completely clued in on, it was possible to refurbish the other blocks from this era to a modern standard, but this particular development had become too dilapidated to be saved and was entirely demolished instead.

The redevelopment was originally planned to involve several phases, but because of the PPP collapse in the late 2000s only phase one, consisting of around 50 new flats, was completed. The rest of the site lay empty for almost a decade and is now being developed as the Primary Care Centre for Dublin 1, thus abandoning the plan to replace more of the demolished housing.

What I'm curious about is the phase one redevelopment which did take place, and the Rutland Court complex which resulted. They took an interesting approach to achieving a high density while avoiding some of the design elements which is regarded as having contributed to bleakness and anti-social behaviour - one thing they did was to use the natural slope of the land to give every unit its own dedicated on-street front door (or sometimes up its own dedicated flight of steps) where the previous complex was the standard DCC "balcony access", with one central stairwell and a row of front doors on each balcony. As far as I know, it was also redeveloped as a mixed-tenure development as opposed to a fully social housing development, although information about this is extremely scarce.

What I'm wondering is: Can anyone who lives locally confirm whether or not this development was a success? I'm curious about various markers of success / failure - quality of housing, quality of life for people living there, design issues, antisocial behaviour, etc. The previous complex was fairly notorious as a dangerous no-go zone for quite a while in the mid-2000s, and I remember walking through that street on the way home from a school tour of Croker at one point and being roared at by randomers from balconies, and seeing a few burnt out cars and that kind of sh!te. Did the redevelopment - which was hailed as a big increase in security due to the new layout - solve these issues?

Essentially, is the complex itself decent to live in now in terms of both structure and social culture, and is the street still regarded as a no-go zone or did redevelopment improve it?

Essentially wondering whether the type of redevelopment employed was a good decision policy wise, and whether this is the type of social housing development we should be lobbying our politicians to build more of in order to get us out of the housing mess we're in, but at the same time avoiding the creation of new socially deprived and dangerous neighbourhoods a la the former Mountainview complex on that site, which end up becoming places people don't actually want to live in.

Any info on this and how it's panned out since it was built?

The old complex:



What it looks like now:

Victor

Former minister, Ruairi Quinn used to work as an architect. One of the points he made was that often people (council tenants?) wanted to live in houses, not flats. Hence the likes of the 1980s / 1990s houses on Sean Moore Road (Burke Kennedy Doyle?) and Summerhill (Doyle Architects?).

https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.3403011,-6.214876,3a,75y,2.66h,83.11t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sThFeE8_6WVgQNFI9rw8Pdg!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo3.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DThFeE8_6WVgQNFI9rw8Pdg%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D26.895723%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

https://www.google.ie/maps/@53.3556804,-6.2528523,3a,75y,354.87h,95.89t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sKVymyw4Ttmmg8URXacrdaw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo2.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DKVymyw4Ttmmg8URXacrdaw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D141.77768%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i13312!8i6656

Aside from redevelopment, one of the things that has happened in recent years in the Summerhill area has been that many roads have been turned into cul de sacs.

Rutland Street Upper became Sean O'Casey Avenue, only to then be cut off from Summer Street North, Healy Street and Summerhill. Rutland Street Lower cut off from Bella Street. Rutland Street Lower closed to traffic. No through route through Killarney Court. North Clarence Street Flats split from Dunne Street Flats.

James Joyce Street, Railway Street, Sean McDermott Street, Cathal Brugha Street have all been renamed - sometimes twice.

There are quite a few modern playgrounds in the area, something that probably didn't exist at all previously, see http://url.ie/125oj - click 'Run' if nothing shows.

At least until the recession, one has to wonder whether changes came from redevelopment or improved economic opportunity.

The area is still used for drug dealing and deprivation remains high. Dumping, drug dealing, petty crime (the Gala has security) and interpersonal conflict at various levels from Hutch-Kinahan down all exist.

I suspect the area suffers from commuter employment - relatively few people who live there work there and vice versa.

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Personally, I think the council is too trigger happy to redevelop - if they spent the same money on other measures, I suspect it would be more successful. Council housing suffers horribly from high vacancy rates ("voids") that breed their own problems.

The "balcony access" design seems to have stemmed from Jesuit objection to normal apartment access - that married women might have daytime visitors, unknown to the community. Hence most council housing in Dublin was in the form of houses.

I understand the Dominick Street date from the 1970s, was Mountain View contemporary?

antoinolachtnai

These older apartment blocks sometimes represent very bad use of space by modern standards, even the taller ones. As a result, it's often going to make more sense to build (at say €2000 a meter) than refurbish (at say 1000euros/meter).

donaghs

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

These older apartment blocks sometimes represent very bad use of space by modern standards, even the taller ones. As a result, it's often going to make more sense to build (at say €2000 a meter) than refurbish (at say 1000euros/meter).

The housing density is still being reduced though? Not really what you want in a modern city. As these are "social housing" with "anti-social" behaviour issues, i guess special considerations have to made to try and reduce these issues.

Victor wrote: »

The "balcony access" design seems to have stemmed from Jesuit objection to normal apartment access - that married women might have daytime visitors, unknown to the community.

I never heard that one, I always thought it was part of the same school of thought that tried to create "streets in the sky" in UK apartments: https://municipaldreams.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/the-park-hill-estate-sheffield-streets-in-the-sky/