{"id":339983,"date":"2026-03-11T05:47:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:47:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/339983\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T05:47:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:47:11","slug":"first-homes-at-former-central-mental-hospital-in-dundrum-set-to-be-completed-by-late-2028-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/339983\/","title":{"rendered":"First homes at former Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum set to be completed by late 2028 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/housing-crisis\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/housing-crisis\/\">new homes<\/a> at the site of the former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/central-mental-hospital\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/central-mental-hospital\/\">Central Mental Hospital<\/a> in Dundrum, south Dublin are expected to be completed by the end of 2028. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The withdrawal of a High Court challenge on Monday \u201cclears the way\u201d for construction to continue with enabling works already under way, the Land Development Agency (LDA) has said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Developer Mark Leonard has withdrawn his challenge to the construction of almost 1,000 homes. Lawyers for Leonard told the High Court on Monday the judicial review proceedings, against An Coimisi\u00fan Plean\u00e1la (ACP) and D\u00fan Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, were being withdrawn.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Leonard filed court papers last month initiating the proceedings, which related to ACP\u2019s decision in December to grant permission to the county council and the LDA for 934 affordable purchase, cost-rental and social homes on the old hospital site.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The LDA said on Tuesday that enabling works were under way and will run until the third quarter of this year \u201cwith the main construction works to begin after that\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cWe\u2019re targeting the delivery of first homes for late 2028,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph b-it-article-body__interstitial-link\">[\u00a0<a aria-label=\"Open related story\" class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/business\/2026\/03\/09\/legal-challenge-to-housing-development-at-former-central-mental-hospital-in-dundrum-withdrawn\/\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Legal challenge to housing development at former Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum withdrawnOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The LDA is the State\u2019s affordable housing delivery body.\u202fIts main role is to acquire and develop State and other land to deliver affordable homes.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">John Coleman, chief executive of the LDA, said previously that the overall completion date was set for 2030.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coleman said the cost of the homes will be determined closer to completion with affordable cost rental homes set at between 25 and 33 per cent lower than market value.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" class=\"c-image audio_image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1754647931518-c07d65db-55b5-463e-ae51-976300c5837e.jpeg\"\/>How the conflict in the Middle East is already affecting Irish consumers<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cIt\u2019s quite a high-value area, so we would anticipate it will be roughly a third less than what the market value is at that time,\u201d he said earlier this year. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The Dundrum site is one of the most prominent housing sites in the LDA\u2019s portfolio of State lands. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Leonard previously took a separate legal challenge to permission granted for 852 homes at the hospital site under the now-defunct fast-track strategic housing development scheme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">In that case, Leonard argued that the development was in conflict with the D\u00fan Laoghaire-Rathdown county development plan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">An Bord Plean\u00e1la, ACP\u2019s predecessor, conceded that challenge, but the LDA, which was a notice party, decided to continue to defend the case, which remains live.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coleman told an Oireachtas committee last year that the court challenge delayed the plans by two years, and added \u201cat least \u20ac30 million\u201d to the \u20ac400 million project cost. This was the equivalent of putting at least \u20ac30,000 on to the cost of each home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The development, known as Dundrum Central, will comprise a mix of housing units including apartments, duplexes and houses. The former main entrance to the hospital, on the Dundrum Road, will be used for emergency vehicles only, with a new entrance further south along the road. The high walls surrounding the location will also be lowered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coleman said it would be difficult to turn the old hospital building on the site, which is a protected structure, into apartments but they were \u201clooking at all options\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first new homes at the site of the former Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum, south Dublin are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,4478,615,61,60,16455],"class_list":["post-339983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-dart","tag-dublin","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-irish-rail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}