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Vacant Properties

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 June 2021

Thursday, 24 June 2021

Ceisteanna (10, 50)

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill

Ceist:

10. Deputy Jennifer Carroll MacNeill asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the status of his engagement with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council with regard to vacant homes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33882/21]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Fergus O'Dowd

Ceist:

50. Deputy Fergus O'Dowd asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the details of his Department's most recent interactions, meetings and briefings with the vacant homes officers assigned to each local authority; the details of key targets to bring public and private vacant homes back into use; if specific targets have been issued to local authorities in respect of the targets for 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33864/21]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí ó Béal (8 píosaí cainte)

My question is about the Minister's engagement with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council in respect of vacant homes. Only 29 vacant properties have been brought back into use in the area through the various schemes introduced over the last three or four years. Is there a particular difficulty in the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council area in comparison with comparable councils such as Fingal County Council, Galway City Council and so on? I am interested in hearing the Minister of State's response.

I thank the Deputy for the question. I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 and 50 together.

I have had no direct interaction with Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council recently in respect of specific issues related to vacant housing. Officials of my Department are, however, in ongoing contact with local authorities on issues related to vacant housing, providing advice and guidance where appropriate. A series of briefing sessions for vacant home officers was organised between March and June 2020 and there is ongoing engagement with those officers as issues arise.

The national vacant housing reuse strategy, which was published by my Department in 2018, provides a targeted, effective and co-ordinated approach to identifying and tackling vacancy across the country.

The range of objectives and actions it specifies have been pursued in partnership with stakeholders and agencies across the housing sector to address vacancy in our housing stock. In that context, all 31 local authorities have prepared a vacant homes action plan for their respective administrative areas. These plans identify the scale of vacant homes in their jurisdiction and set ambitious but realistic targets for the number of vacant homes that can ultimately be brought back into use. In that regard, my Department and the local authorities are being proactive in dealing with vacant properties and there are a number of schemes available to incentivise reactivating suitable dwellings into liveable housing stock.

My Department continues to keep vacant homes schemes and the various functions of the vacant homes officers under review, with ongoing feedback from those officers. I am anxious to ensure that best practice is implemented more consistently across local government and intend to address this by way of a circular following on from the new housing strategy, Housing for All, which will be published in the coming weeks.

I thank the Minister of State. That is encouraging news at a national level. I am concerned about the Dún Laoghaire area because there is a finite amount of space for new builds. The area is bordered by the sea and is already densely populated. We have a challenge, with a sports-mad population, to find green space for children to play. In that context, we really depend on using existing stock efficiently and well. The very helpful vacant homes website that Mayo County Council set up identifies that in May of this year there were 130 vacant homes but I know that is not the universe of vacancy in my area. I refer in particular to over-the-shop units on George's Street in Dún Laoghaire. There are 264 shops on the street, which is 1.2 km long. Dún Laoghaire is an old Victorian town and it has proved very difficult to convert over-the-shop space into residential property for a whole range of reasons, including the need for fire escapes and insurance difficulties. These are opportunities and I know that this is an area in which the Minister of State has a keen interest.

I thank Deputy Carroll MacNeill for her contribution. A vacant homes pilot project took place involving six local authority areas, with two visual inspections six months apart. In Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, 1,177 properties were inspected and 21 were deemed to be in long-term dereliction in that functional area following the second inspection. We need to review our plans on vacant properties and are doing so in the context of Housing for All. The Deputy is right to point to the potential to unlock property along a 1.2 km street in her area. Brownfield sites and units above shops may provide suitable accommodation. We really need to ensure that schemes are targeted to unlock the potential that exists and that is one of the key issues I am exploring in the context of the towns first proposal, to give people the opportunity to live over shops which will assist in meeting the demand for housing. We will do our very best to deliver on those policies.

I really appreciate that. As the Minister of State said, this is important on a number of fronts. First, it helps to meet a housing need for different types of family units who need different types of space. Second, it helps to revitalise our towns and increase footfall on the streets. This is not just relevant in the Dún Laoghaire, George's Street area but is such an obvious area to try to target. Third, from a climate perspective it is far more beneficial to intelligently and efficiently use existing stock rather than building new housing, although that is also necessary. It is just inconceivable that as a State we would have vacant and redundant space. I spoke with the architects in Dún Laoghaire about this and about the challenges they face. Clearly the fire escape issue is a difficult one but there are ways of getting around it. The bigger issue is insurance. I urge the Minister of State to have a conversation with the Minister of State at the Department of Finance, Deputy Fleming, about this because the insurance differential for having commercial space on the ground floor and residential space above seems to be an almost insurmountable difficulty. I would ask that the Minister and the Ministers of State have a discussion with their colleagues in the Department of Finance about this.

Deputy Carroll MacNeill raises a very good point in relation to insurance. This is an issue that we have been looking at in Cork city for the past ten or 12 years. I discussed with the Minister a number of weeks ago the fact that there are 92,000 vacant homes in this State but we have only three full-time vacant home officers. The Minister of State said that a grant of €50,000 is available to local authorities but that is only a drop in the ocean. There are vacant properties in areas where there is insufficient land available to provide housing for people. I accept that the Minister of State is genuine with regard to this issue. I urge him to speak to the Minister and officials in the Department about the possibility of providing more resources in this area. This is a quick way to get housing onto the market and to provide accommodation for people.

In any county there are typically 15 to 17 communities which one can mark off on the housing application list in terms of where one would like to live. In between those communities, there is a scattering of towns and villages that do not have social housing or in which local authorities are no longer providing social housing. In county Clare there are places like Labasheeda and Lisdoonvarna which have a range of vacant properties on their main streets, with for sale and to let signs all the way along. People talk about the housing crisis but there are many properties that are under lock and key or that have been boarded up for many years. It makes sense to start turning these around. We have a policy on voids and a very positive scheme in place, to which the Minister referred earlier. We also need to look at revitalising some of our declining rural villages, in particular the string of houses up along their main streets. We need to see people living over shops again and we also need to turn around those vacant properties.

This is a very important issue, as the Deputies have just highlighted. In terms of towns first, towards the end of the year we will have firm Government proposals for unlocking some of those sites that are targeted in the national planning framework and bringing them back into use. We must also consider sites, houses and shops on main streets that can be converted through the various schemes which are currently being reviewed by the Minister in the context of Housing for All. It is also important to acknowledge that local authorities have resources available to them, with a grant of €50,000 for vacant homes officers. In many local authorities vacant homes officers are working on numerous other tasks including broadband, for example, but they need to be focused on getting properties back into use. In Cork city, an inspection showed that only 16 properties were vacant over the course of six months. This is something we will have to closely examine but maybe there is not as much low-hanging fruit as some would suggest.

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