Pilot housing plan for Limerick town

MAYOR John Moran has set money aside in his budget for a trial which will see derelict homes refurbished and rented to council tenants.

Part of an allocation of €2.3m on housing is to go on a pilot project in Abbeyfeale.

If it is a success, the first citizen wants to expand it out to all of Limerick.

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Limerick City and County Council has purchased a number of derelict homes in the town near Kerry’s border.

Rather than sell these homes onto private buyers, as is often the case when council buys derelict houses, Mayor Moran wants the local authority to keep them, and rent them out to people who might not be able to access social housing as they are above the income threshold, but want to rent in the town and cannot find suitable and affordable homes to do this.

Tenants will also be afforded additional security of tenure and not face the threat of eviction as long as they remain good tenants. 

With the rental income generated, he then believes more homes can be purchased - derelict or otherwise - from the private market to serve council tenants.

“What we are trying to say is rather than sell these houses at a loss, can we rent them out for the next 30 years? If we can do this, we release the funds tied up in our derelict homes so they can start doing more,” he said.

The mayor believes the council will be able to secure private loans which can be used as “seed funding” to buy new units.

The reason Abbeyfeale has been chosen for the pilot is because it has been designated as a ‘town of the future’ in the mayoral plan.

On top of this, the purchase of homes there was under way.

“If we can crack this structure and get this to work, it can be scaled up for all forms of rental accommodation for private sector workers, key workers and others right across the county and in the city. We will have established a structure which works. We have established how you can get funding, and how the economics of this will work,” he said.

This model originates from Vienna which has given rise to it being named after the Austrian capital.

He admits Government “might not appreciate all the angles of it yet”.

“It’s not revolutionary, it’s just being done well in other places. It’s more that we’ve not taken this approach in Ireland before.

We are looking at tried and tested approaches which are different to what has been done in the past,” the directly elected mayor concluded.