Dublin City Council guts scheme to turn vacant offices into social housing
Several councillors reacted with dismay to Dublin City Council’s (DCC) gutting of its adaptive reuse programme, which turns vacant office and commercial buildings into social homes.
The scheme, launched in October 2022, promised to examine empty and unused buildings around the city and turn them into social housing units, but the number of projects under its remit has shrunk rapidly in recent months.
In December last year, the adaptive reuse unit was progressing plans for 14 projects to deliver 125 social homes, but in an update given yesterday to councillors, Mick Mulhern, DCC head of housing, confirmed that only one of these was now moving ahead.
“We’re still progressing with one of the adaptive reuse projects at Fitzwilliam Quay, which has the potential to deliver probably about 15 homes,” he said, emphasising that the programme was not being wound up.
"It’s a really worthwhile programme … we’re just moving some of the resources onto more pressing matters right now".
"We’ve got several housing sites across the city which can unlock a larger number of homes in a quicker timescale,” he added.
“I think in housing what we need to focus our attentions on really, in the short term at least, is how we deliver the most number of homes in the quickest period of time”.
Only 49 per cent of DCC’s housing targets have been met in the years 2022 to 2024.
But councillors in attendance were very disappointed at the significant roll back of the scheme.
“[Adaptive reuse] is, in my view, a no-brainer,” said councillor Deirdre Heney, the head of the Housing Strategic Policy Committee (SPC).
“It’s a no-brainer in terms of our climate action plan and our aspirations around carbon neutrality and all of the benefits that it provides for us as a city,” the Fianna Fáil member added.
Councillor John Lyons agreed, saying that the adaptive reuse programme should be a “huge priority” for DCC, and that it wasn’t only an issue for the Housing SPC, but also the Planning and Climate SPCs too.
As part of the the programme, funding was approved for the acquisition of 14-15 Fitzwilliam Quay, which is still going ahead.
DCC had also acquired 114-116 Capel Street, and was in the process of acquiring 371-373 North Circular Road, with the intention of converting these into housing projects.
Two other sites owned by DCC, 38-39 Bolton Street and the Married Quarters Building on Infirmary Road, were also earmarked for social housing under the scheme.
Dublin City Council was asked about the fate of these sites now that staff from the unit are being redeployed, but didn’t respond in time for publication.