Compulsory Purchase Orders and their application

A bus corridor is planned by the National Transport Authority for one of main arteries into the city in Terenure/Rathgar Dublin 6.

This will be achieved via compulsory purchase orders of front gardens and driveways.

In the last week, CPO notices have appeared in front of each of the three apartment developments on this road. Not a single private house has had a CPO notice put on it.

We own an apartment in a development of four. If the CPO goes ahead, we will lose two of the four parking spaces. Not a huge deal since we could avail of residents parking permits and park in side roads.

But, what I'd like to know is this...

1. Why are the three apartment developments being singled out for CPO and not the private residences? A bus corridor will need a slice of every front garden. Is this a case of testing the water first with low hanging fruit?

2. Is it possible that the NTA would use the CPO and redevelopment of the three apartment blocks as a test? If so, what happens if the scheme spends years in the courts and collapses? Do we get our front drives back? (There's a lot of money on this road; the house-dwellers will not give in easily.)

I have no problem with this development if everyone is treated the same. But, focusing on the apartments to the total exclusion of individual houses smacks of institutional thuggery.

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks.

D.

Wild guess here:

Possibly single-occupancy residences are also being subjected to CPOs, but the owners and other affected parties have been notified directly by post. Under the legislation, notification by erecting a notice on the land is only necessary where there is or may be an owner or other affected party who can't be identified or hasn't been located. It may be that, with blocks of flats, the Council has a policy of erecting notices as a belt-and-braces measure in case, between lettings and sublettings and licences that aren't necessarily registered, there is an affected party that they don't know about.

A newpaper notice about the CPOs was published in the Independent on 23 Jan; you can read it here. There's a long schedule of properties to be the subject of a CPO, and lot of the properties are described as "house garden" and are having relatively small areas (3.6 sq. m; 4.3 sq. m; 5.1 sq. m) compulsorily acquired from them. That's consistent with all their front walls being set back so that a strip of their front gardens can be acquired to make space for the infrastructure of the bus corridor.

More than a wild guess, I’d say. Many thanks for that. Sounds totally plausible.

D.

The CPO notices for two of the apartment developments (ours included) on our road list Noel O’Gara as an interested party. In our case, the original development company went broke. As far as we know, they owned the freehold. (Our management company certainly doesn’t own it. We are simply a limited company with a cheque book, set up to manage our affairs - maintenance, refuse, insurance, etc.) Who owns the freehold now, we are not sure.
Is it possible to find that out?

Also, if the NTA are compensating people financially as part of the CPO process, how would that be divided? Would the owner of the freehold be entitled to anything?

Thanks in advance.

D.

Another apartment owner in our block spoke to NTA who were very informative. Attached is the schedule, O'Gara and spouse appearing quite a few times.

More details here. https://templeoguerathfarnhamscheme.ie/

D.

Dinarius said:

Also, if the NTA are compensating people financially as part of the CPO process, how would that be divided? Would the owner of the freehold be entitled to anything?

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Divided in proportion to market value. The owner of the freehold would get a chunk, but the freehold, if is subject to a long lease under which a nominal rent is paid, is not worth very much, so the share of the CPO purchase money that the freeholder would get is correspondingly small.

Dinarius said:

n our case, the original development company went broke. . . . Who owns the freehold now, we are not sure. Is it possible to find that out?

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Not your problem. The NTA has to pay the freeholder whatever purchase money is due to them under the CPO. So it's the NTA that has to identify the freeholder, not you.