The final twelve houses will be completed by the end of July
The new social housing development at Arcadia is being named Esker Park.
Westmeath County Council has today confirmed the completion of the first 21 new homes of what will be a 33-unit development.
The project was designed and overseen by Westmeath County Council’s in-house architectural department. Twenty-one homes are now complete and tenants have started to move in since Wednesday, June 17. The remaining twelve houses will be completed by the end of July. The estate is named “Esker Park” after a system of eskers that stretch across Ireland since the last Ice Age.
The houses are all built to a very high standard of finish. This includes high levels of insulation, underfloor heating on the ground floor and an air-to-water heating system. The system eliminates the use of fossil fuels. The main benefit of air-to-water technology to a homeowner is very high efficiency resulting in low heating costs.
All homes incorporate level access with wider front doors, a ground floor wet-room, wider corridors, the elimination of radiators on the ground floor to facilitate easier access, and wider internal doors.
Each of the two-storey units have side passages to the rear gardens to allow access for bins and bicycles and all houses have steel sheds in the rear gardens.
There are four two-bedroom single storey units within the scheme which are designed for older people or people with a specific need for universal access. These are designed for assisted living including fully fitted and tiled sanitary facilities and accessible showers.
The development adopts the principles of passive supervision where all parking, paths, roads and open spaces are over-looked, providing a better sense of security and safety. Any homes on a corner are designed to reduce the extent of high walls and contain windows on both facing walls for better security and for visual amenity.
The design of the project was led by Westmeath County Council’s in-house architectural team with O.R.S. Engineering in the role of Civil and Structural Engineers, Tom McNamara and Partners as Quantity Surveyors and JAK Engineering as Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. The main contractor for the project was Glenman Corporation Ltd.