Glass Bottle site receivers appeal Poolbeg social housing plans

Plans to build almost 1,000 social and affordable homes at the Glass Bottle site on Dublin’s Poolbeg peninsula have been appealed by the site’s receivers, despite the State owning a large stake in the land. An Bord Pleanála will later this month open a public hearing on Dublin City Council’s plans for fast-track development of up to 3,500 apartments in a new Strategic Development Zone (SDZ)at Poolbeg. Last May the council said it had reached a deal with then Minister for Environment Simon Coveney, Nama and receivers, that State funding would be made available to bring the number of social and affordable homes in Poolbeg to 900.

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Minister urged to prevent ‘betrayal’ over Poolbeg social housing

Dublin City councillors have called on the Minister for Housing to intervene to prevent an appeal over plans to build almost 1,000 social and affordable houses at the Irish Glass Bottle site on Dublin’s Poolbeg peninsula. Last May, the council said it reached a deal with then minister for environment Simon Coveney, Nama and receiver that State funding would be made available to bring the number of social and affordable homes in Poolbeg up to 900. However, the plans were recently appealed by the site’s receiver Deloitte which wants to reduce the number of social and affordable homes to a maximum of 350.

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DDDA seeks security for costs of legal action from McNamara company

THE DUBLIN Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) has brought a preliminary application aimed at having developer Bernard McNamara’s company, Donatex Ltd, provide security for the costs of their legal action alleging the authority exposed them to claims of more than €108 million over the purchase of the Irish Glass Bottle (IGB) site at Ringsend in Dublin.

The motion for security of costs was mentioned yesterday before Mr Justice Peter Kelly, who listed it for hearing on February 10th.

The motion was due to have been heard next Monday but the sides have agreed to defer it on terms including requiring Donatex to file a replying affidavit by January 22nd.

The action against the DDDA has been brought by Mr McNamara and Donatex arising from their involvement in the €412 million purchase of the IGB site.

Earlier this week, judgment for €62.5 million and €98 million was entered respectively against Mr McNamara and Donatex arising from failure by Donatex to repay loans given to it by private investors for the IGB site acquisition.

During those proceedings, the court heard neither Mr McNamara nor Donatex could pay the sums sought.

Mr McNamara and Donatex had last November initiated their action against the DDDA. They claim, because of a High Court finding in 2008 that the DDDA acted outside its powers in how it fast-tracked permission for another docklands development at North Wall Quay, that the DDDA was never entitled to enter in November 2006 into an agreement involving Mr McNamara and developer Derek Quinlan related to development of the IGB site.

They allege the DDDA was unable to perform its obligations under that IGB agreement and therefore frustrated the ability of Mr McNamara and others to develop the site, meaning substantial losses for them.

Mr McNamara said he faced potential claims totalling more than €108 million on foot of loans raised from Anglo Irish Bank and private investors with Davy Property Holdings Ltd and on the basis of guarantees given by him related to those loans.

Mr McNamara claims the Dublin Port Company and South Wharf plc had in September 2006 advertised the IGB site for sale by tender, representing the largest site in Dublin 4 for years to become available for development.

He claims then DDDA chief executive Paul Maloney approached him a month later about becoming involved with the authority in submitting a bid for the IGB site.

Mr McNamara claims he initially indicated he was not interested as he believed it would not be possible to generate a profit from the site.

He alleges Mr Maloney had further meetings with him and made several representations, including that the DDDA could “fast-track” any application for permission for development without the planning risk of third-party observations or appeals to An Bord Pleanála.

On that basis, he said he would be prepared to consider a joint bid with the DDDA for the site.

Beebay Ltd was incorporated and used by himself and the DDDA to bid for the IGB site. Mempal Ltd, a company controlled by Derek Quinlan, later acquired an interest in Beebay.

In November 2006, Donatex held 41 per cent, Mempal 33 per cent and DDDA 26 per cent of Beebay.

In late January 2007, Beebay’s tender was accepted and it acquired the site for €412 million with funds of some €288 million from Anglo Irish Bank (later converted into a joint facility provided by Anglo and Allied Irish Banks), €57.5 million from Donatex, €32.1 million from the DDDA and €46.3 million from Mempal.

The funds provided by Donatex were sourced from private clients of Davy and the loan stock instrument was later transferred from Davy Estates Ltd to Jersey-registered Ringsend Property Ltd (RPL), which earlier this week secured summary judgment against Mr McNamara and Donatex on foot of that instrument.

Irish Times

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Polluted Glass Bottle Site may need to be built on stilts

A senior inspector's report on the controversial Irish Glass Bottle site, seen by the Sunday Tribune, warns that dangerous emissions of methane gas mean only costly structures, such as buildings on stilts, can be contemplated for the area and adjoining Dublin docklands sites.

The report will scupper the slim chances the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA) have of retrieving more than €100m of state money spent on part-purchasing the near 25-acre site in 2006. The presence of methane will force the developers to opt for lower floors "raised above ground level''.

It will also likely add fire to the legal battle involving the DDDA, co-developer Bernard McNamara and clients of Davy Stockbrokers.

Experts say other nearby docklands sites, including Liam Carroll's adjoining Fabrizia site, could face similar issues with methane gas produced by domestic waste.

The report shows methane gas emissions buried in a five metre layer was at concentrations of up to 28% in some test wells at the Glass Bottle site.

Sunday Tribune

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Glass Bottle site may be 'effectively worthless' due to toxic waste issue

A ruling on allegedly high levels of toxic methane gas at the former Irish Glass Bottle site in Ringsend, part owned by state company the Dublin Docklands Development Agency (DDDA), will determine whether the project is "effectively worthless" and whether the semi-state agency will be forced to spend even more public money on the project.

The board of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will decide in the next few days whether the 24-acre site, bought for €412m in 2006 by the DDDA, Bernard McNamara and Derek Quinlan, has managed to make use of €30m to remove and clean contaminated soils and methane gas from the site.

Methane was produced because parts of the site were for four decades used as a main Dublin dump for household waste.

Any possibility of the DDDA retrieving money from the project's remaining value, which has been officially written down by 85% last week, now depends on the EPA decision, Phil Hogan, Fine Gael's environment spokesman told the Sunday Tribune.

EPA files show that a former EPA inspector Malcolm Doak, in a four-page technical submission to the EPA in late July, alleged 30% levels of methane gas existed on the site's perimeter and that the project therefore posed a "significant gas risk".

Arup Consulting, the engineers working on cleaning the site, in August wrote to the EPA rejecting Doak's claims and said that "best practise" preparing contaminated land for "future proposed high density mixed-use development" were followed. Doak, a leading professional hydrologist, is understood not have worked on the Glass Bottle site while at the EPA.

Hogan said that the site was "worthless" because more money will be needed to prepare it for proposed high-density residential use.

Calling for an investigation into the roles as owner, developer and powerful planning authority played by the DDDA, Hogan said that "effectively the value of the site is nil.

Sunday Tribune

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Massive writedown in value of Irish Glass Bottle site

The controversial Irish Glass Bottle site in Dublin has been valued at around €60 million in a recent valuation conducted by auctioneers working on behalf of the state-owned Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA).

The valuation marks an approximate 85 per cent writedown in the value of the site from its original reported purchase price of €413million, The Sunday Business Post has learned.

The writedown means the taxpayer is sitting on a paper loss of €87.5 million on the investment. The taxpayer is exposed to the huge fall in the value of the site because the DDDA is a 26 per cent shareholder in the consortium that bought it.

The enormous scale of the write-down reflects the extent of the fall in value of some development sites. Falls of this magnitude could result in Nama ultimately paying a lot less than the estimated €54 billion for property loans on the banks’ balance sheets.

Phil Hogan of Fine Gael, who sits on an Oireachtas committee which has been examining the controversial purchase by the DDDA, said the reports of a valuation of around €60 million on a site that was reportedly bought for €413 mill ion shows the ‘ ‘ tot al contempt’’ that the DDDA had for taxpayers’ money. The committee is meeting again to discuss the DDDA issue on Tuesday week.

The new valuation will also be a blow to the other shareholders in the Becbay consortium which acquired the site.

The other shareholders are multimillionaire property developer Bernard McNamara, who held 41percent of the consortium, and multimillionaire tax adviser Derek Quinlan, who held 33 per cent. McNamara funded his share of the Becbay deal with the help of equity provided by the private clients of Davy Stockbrokers.

Earlier this year, the Davy clients were told the value of their investment had been written down by 60 per cent.

A spokeswoman for the DDDA said she could not confirm the valuation when asked. ‘‘I can’t confirm the figures," she said. ‘‘We regularly value our properties."

She said the annual report of the DDDA would be with Minister for the Environment John Gormley in the next couple of weeks. Publication of the accounts has already been delayed by several months.

Sunday Business Post

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Student residences proposed for €412m Irish Glass Bottle site

The most expensive site in the history of the state, the €412m Irish Glass Bottle site, could ultimately be used to house up to 1,000 third-level students.

The owners of the site in Poolbeg, Dublin, are understood to have expressed an interest in providing about 1,000 bed spaces in student residences for Trinity College Dublin (TCD) on part of the site. The site is owned by the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA), developer Bernard McNamara and retired property syndicator Derek Quinlan.

The site is facing a hefty writedown in value in the coming weeks after land prices fell 70% in the downturn. In addition, Bernard McNamara and his company Donatex are suing the DDDA in relation to interest payments on the site, where about €30m has been spent on decontamination. The first phase of the South Wharf site is to include one million square feet of office space and about 1,250 apartments.

TCD had initially signalled that it was looking for 1,000 student residential units by September 2010, and possibly as many as 3,500 by 2020.

However, when the tender was published it was changed to 1,000 bed spaces. A spokeswoman for Trinity College said "there has been a substantial response and the submissions are currently being evaluated".

The sites submitted must be located within a 30-minute peak-time commute of the college by a frequent public-transport system. Alternatively it must be located within 2.5km of TCD's campus.

In addition, each site should be large enough to accommodate a minimum of 350 student bed spaces unless they are within 500 metres of the main campus or the Trinity Hall student residences in Dartry, south Dublin. In that case the minimum requirement for the site reduces to 150 bed spaces.

The university may require the successful bidder to design, build, operate and maintain (DBOM) the new accommodation and associated facilities. "The project may also include the supply of a site or a site and existing buildings and the provision of finance for the proposed solution," the tender stated. The university is also considering using the DBOM with its own sites but this is unlikely to happen unless there are insufficient qualified candidates for the other options.

McNamara has built a number of the buildings within TCD's campus.

Sunday Tribune

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