Social housing and potential of Comeragh landbanks
Cllr Liam Brazil asked the Executive if there was land available for housing in villages such as Stradbally, pictured.
The subject of social housing and landbanks arose at the recent meeting of the Comeragh District.
Councillor Liam Brazil (Fine Gael) asked the Executive: "Have we got any land in our villages, the likes of Leamybrien, Stradbally, and all other villages throughout the area? I do believe that if we had landbanks there, the Government would give money to build houses on these banks."
Cllr Declan Clune (Independent) said: "In terms of landbanks, we're actually waiting a year this month to get this report on any available landbanks in the Comeragh district."
Cllr Clune also asked about the potential of Government funding for housing on landbanks.
"Is there funding available; if there was, for example, residentially zoned sites in a town or village that have not currently been developed?
He added: "Is there funding available just for the council to approach those developers and potentially buy that zoned land off them to either sell as affordable sites or to put some housing on them."
Cllr Clune referenced Council landbanks in Coolfin and Beechwood Drive in Portlaw that could be appropriate locations for the development of social housing.
He said: "Now, I totally accept that social housing isn't the answer to everything. There has to be a private element to it as well. But we do have a considerable amount of local people that are on the social housing waiting list, and there's little or no social housing units coming available in Portlaw."
He went on: "Obviously, there's been huge focus in the bigger areas in the last few years, like Waterford City, Dungarvan and Tramore, but I think we need to see a bit more focus now on the rural areas because no matter where you look in the city there's houses being built, but there's been little or no development over the last 10 years in the Comeragh district, except for a couple of houses in Kilmac and the 12 houses in Portlaw."
Cllr John O'Leary (Fianna Fáil) inquired into the current state of derelict sites, and their potential for social housing.
He asked: "What is the potential in the Comeraghs in relation to derelict sites? Will it be satisfactory? Can we recoup or can they be turned into livable accommodation?"
A member of the Executive responded: "I am working with the Chief Executive at the moment to pull together all the information in terms of where the landbanks are, what's the housing need and what are the funding opportunities available."
"I would hope to come back to the October meeting with the report on that; if it's not ready I will commit to it being by the November meeting, because it's certainly information I'm pulling together."
