COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, June 08, 2020

QUESTION NO. 25

QUESTION: Councillor Joanna Tuffy

To ask the Chief Executive for an update on the Council record on vacant houses and the identification of vacant properties that can be taken into public ownership for housing allocation, in particular how many houses in South Dublin, have been reported as vacant, or identified as vacant and what action has been taken to date

REPLY:

According to the Central Statistics Office (2016), South Dublin County had the lowest vacancy rate of properties in the country at 3.6%.  Under the National Vacant Housing Re-use Strategy, each Local Authority was required to identify the scale of vacant homes within those vacant properties, categorising vacant homes by location, ownership and reason for vacancy.  This allowed properties to be identified that had the potential to be refurbished and made available for use to address vacancy within the County.

It is important to note that the vast majority of the properties identified as vacant were not suitable to be pursued to return to housing stock as they involved a combination of industrial use properties, properties that were subject to probate or other legal proceedings, homes where the owner/occupier was in hospital or residential care.  Over the last nine months, 65 residual properties classified as vacant have been inspected by the Council with 27 now occupied and a further 6 either for sale, sale agreed or sold.  The remaining 32 properties continue to be subject of investigations to consider the best course of action.

There are several initiatives in place to support and enable privately owned vacant homes to be brought back into use whether to the social housing or private rented market including:

The primary objective is to encourage property owners to engage with the Council and find solutions for the vacant home units without having to resort to an acquisition process. However, the Council has a range of legislative powers available to deal with under-utilised and derelict properties including through Compulsory Purchase and Derelict Sites legislation where necessary. 

To date, under the National Vacant Housing Re-use Strategy, six properties have been acquired by the Council under the Derelict Sites Legislation and brought back into social housing stock.

Vacant properties can be reported via http://vacanthome.ie and reports are received on an ongoing basis.  All such reports are inspected and examined although it should also be noted that the vast majority of properties that have been reported as vacant are in fact occupied.