DLR Housing Delivery Plan slammed by councillors

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has passed a Housing Delivery Action Plan which outlines the council’s commitment to constructing social and affordable homes over the next four years.

As part of the Government’s Housing for All scheme, each council is required to detail its plan for the delivery of social and affordable housing with targets handed down by the Department of Housing.

Under its plan, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has estimated there will be 2318 new social homes by the end of 2026 and 1549 new affordable homes – either to buy or to rent.

There are currently 2458 households on the housing waiting list and a further 1768 in RAS or HAP tenancies who are also on the waiting on a permanent home.

The plan was passed by councillors at this month’s council meeting but was criticised by some for not being ambitious enough.

People Before Profit councillor for Dun Laoghaire Melisa Halpin said that the plan is “hopelessly inadequate.

“It will not only not deal with the housing crisis in our county, it actually guarantees that the crisis will have developed into a catastrophe by 2026,” she said.

“There are over 4000 households currently in need of permanent secure homes in the county and the council estimates that a further 2825 will join the list in the next five years.

“A plan for 2318 new social homes when the actual need is for nearly 7000 would be laughable if it were not so serious,” Halpin said.

A motion submitted by Halpin to revise the target number of homes was defeated at the meeting by Fine Gael and Fianna Fail councillors.

Independent councillor Hugh Lewis said that the plan for affordable housing is “even worse.”

“Firstly, it estimates a need for affordable housing based on new households that will be formed over the next five years and ignores the current need for affordable housing that is overwhelming in Dún Laoghaire where the average house price is now over €600,000.

“It also estimates that only 28 percent of households in the county have an “affordability constraint” but when you look at the data provided, virtually all new households will have an “affordability constraint” if house prices stay the way they are,” he said.

Lewis says that the current proposal will not help alleviate the housing crisis and needs to be revised.

“We need a vastly more ambitious plan,” he says.

“One that has to include the building of substantially more homes – both affordable and social and that has the aim of actually dealing with the housing crisis rather than just shifting the deckchairs on the titanic.”