COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF DEVELOPMENT PLAN MEETING

Thursday, June 17, 2021

MOTION NO.

MOTION: Councillor T. Costello

Chapter 13 H2 Supply of Housing To monitor and report on the occupancy levels in the newly built build to rent properties across the county

REPORT:

The motion seeks to include a monitoring objective to ‘Monitor and report on the occupancy levels in the newly built build to rent properties across the county.’

The Central Statistics Office (CSO) counts the number of vacant units at each census period and for South Dublin this totalled 3,495 units or 3.7% of the housing stock in 2016. South Dublin had the lowest vacancy rate in the State for 2016.

Further to this, specific information on vacant houses or apartments is available. For 2016, 39% of the vacant units were apartments while 61% were houses. Further detail is also provided on the location of vacancy per small area or electoral division, settlement or within the urban or rural area.

Specific vacancy details in relation to tenure type including build-to-rent properties is not readily available. However, the Planning Department are aware there are discussions about the potential inclusion of such detail through the payment of property tax returns in November 2021.

The exact request by the motion is considered to be pre-mature at this stage as it would be difficult to commit to a specific monitoring objective in the absence of technical detail and understanding of the availability of such information.

It is considered that the merit of the motion is very much welcomed to help the Planning Department monitor the effect of tenure (including build-to-rent) in providing homes and their corresponding vacancy levels. Therefore it is considered that the motion is acceptable subject to amendments where H2 ‘Supply of Housing’ within the monitoring section is amended to include ‘and vacancy rates’ for the Monitoring (key Performance / Data Source) column, to state:

‘New dwelling completions and vacancy rates within each settlement. Progress on implementation of extant planning permissions, delivery rate of units per neighbourhood within the overall settlement.

Source: CSO dwelling completions, Housing Taskforce Returns, 2022 Census, and GeoDirectory’

RECOMMENDATION:  

It is recommended that this motion is adopted with amendments whereby the column under Monitoring (Key Performance / Data Source) for H2 Supply of Housing states:

‘New dwelling completions and vacancy rates within each settlement. Progress on implementation of extant planning permissions, delivery rate of units per neighbourhood within the overall settlement’.

Source: CSO dwelling completions, Housing Taskforce Returns, 2022 Census, and GeoDirectory’