A Belfast councillor has criticised the “clustering” of new and planned student blocks around the Sandy Row and Belfast city centre area saying it will leave less space for housing.
At a meeting of the Belfast City Council City Growth and Regeneration Committee, elected representatives poured scorn on recent city core developments during a city regeneration update from council officers. Sinn Féin said the city centre was being “built for profit” while the DUP criticised plans for more student blocks to the south of the core.
As well as Botanic Studios studio apartments on 78- 86 Dublin Road, and the recently completed 253 bed student block Aster House at University Road, plans have been submitted for an 11 storey student block with 210 bedrooms at the site of Filthy McNastys, 41-49 Dublin Road, and an even larger student block with 410 beds at Glenalpin Street, between Shaftesbury Square and Sandy Row.
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Further along Great Victoria Street, at Bruce Street, is another recently completed 15 storey student accommodation building, housing 271 self-contained studios.
DUP Councillor Tracy Kelly told the committee at City Hall: “Hope Street, which is beside the site of the new station, has been talked about for housing for 20 years now. There were commercial and residential plans for the site that now seem to be up in the air.”
She added: “We have concerns about the clustering of student accommodation. As a Botanic Councillor you don’t need to tell me about the Holylands and the issue with unmanaged accommodation.
“But regarding plans for the city centre, there is one now being proposed for Sandy Row, with quite a few already on Dublin Road and Bruce Street. They are right between Donegall Pass and Sandy Row, they are beginning to cluster around inner city communities, and they are causing residents a lot of concern.”
She said: “If there are more plans for student accommodation, residents need to be communicated with a bit more.”
She said: “There is one planned for Glenalpin Street, and maybe four or five in total on Dublin Road. To me that is clustering students in one area with inner city residents right beside them. I think 35 percent of the Holylands has been dropped in the Botanic area.”
A council officer said: “In speaking with the various communities down there and with the university and the purpose built student accommodation providers, they have felt to date it has worked well because it is managed. Whereas the Holylands is not managed.
“There is a different ethos, and the experience in other cities is that it works better than those areas just left to HMO’s.”
Another officer said that there were “very little” issues regarding antisocial behaviour between the new student blocks at Frederick Street and residents at the north edge of the city centre.
Councillor Kelly replied: “I know what you are saying about antisocial behaviour and all the rest, but the concerns from my community is that the land is being taken up by student accommodation leaving less for housing.”
The discussion came during an officer update on the “Belfast City Regeneration Tracker” which captured regeneration and development activity which took place in the city during 2022. The tracker was set up as a guide for the Belfast Agenda, a city community plan made by the council and other partners, and the Belfast City Centre Regeneration and Investment Strategy.
The strategy has an eight point plan, aiming to increase the employment and residential population, increase retail and tourism, focus on a green walkable and cyclable core, with greater connectivity and shared space.
It has identified five “special action areas” - inner North, inner West, the North East Quarter, the Transport Hub and South Centre, and Oxford Street and the Eastern Bank.
SDLP Councillor Carl Whyte told the committee: “Every asset you own, you are taxed on, apart from vacant land for some reason. We have people who own vacant land in Belfast City Centre not subject to any levy, and that results in the planning blight that we see.
“And the rates system is set up to incentivise the construction of purpose built student accommodation over all other types of accommodation. So, you build a student accommodation centre, you phone up Queens, you get a nomination agreement, and you are exempt from paying rates.
“And a lot of those buildings are made from people based in Jersey, Luxemburg, the Isle of Man. The last time I looked we were not getting people based in Jersey, Luxemburg, the Isle of Man interested in building social housing, and there is a reason for that.”
Sinn Féin Councillor Ciaran Beattie said: “We all know the importance of city centre living - it is where we need to go. And we need to replenish footfall. But the worry for me, in the slides for residential housing, there wasn’t one for social housing, not one.
“So we need to talk about where this city is going to be in five, ten, 15, 20 years - the way it is going is developer driven. And it isn’t going to be a city centre for all, it is going to be a city centre built by developers for profit, which isn’t going to serve the citizens of this city.
“We are concerned about this. It isn’t something we can fix in this committee, but it is something we can all look at, and get a resolution on.”
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