Nenagh councillor criticises current system for building social and affordable housing

A Tipperary county councillor has called for the current system of developing housing projects to be amended.

At present, the council goes through four stages of planning before a sod can be turned on a housing development.

Cllr Seamus Morris told Nenagh District Council’s June meeting that he would like to see that brought back to a two-stage process.

“It is making housing extra expensive,” he said, pointing out that it cost €10,500 per house for a consulting architect at a time when the council had its own architect.

Cllr Morris said that this had amounted to just under €380,000 for a recent 36-house development.

“It’s a crazy system,” he declared. “Do they not trust the local government to do it?”

Cllr Morris said it was adding “layer upon layer” of costs to a system that was slowing down building during a housing crisis.

He also questioned an announcement about 67 houses being built in Tyone, which he believed had been previously announced as being built by Respond.

It was recently announced that the council had got permission to build 39 houses on two sites at Emmet Place (12) on Banba Square and at Gortlandroe (27) on the outskirts of the town.

Cllr Morris asked if the Gortlandroe site was the former home of Dr Nugent, which the council had bought.

Housing officer Kieran Malone told Cllr Morris that it took between one year and 18 months for proposed housing schemes to go through the four-stage process “if everything runs smoothly”.

In relation to the council having its own architect, he said that person looked after renovations and extensions and were “very much involved” in stages one and two of the planning process preparing the groundwork for an overall masterplan.

However, as schemes got bigger the council did not have the resources or the expertise, he said.

He agreed that the Tyone scheme had been announced previously but its funding model had come under pressure with interest rate hikes.

“They are only starting to come back on line now,” he said.

In relation to Emmet Place, Mr Malone said the council was building 12 houses in the former Sheahan’s yard, and the hub for the old Rialto building was being carried out alongside this.

He confirmed that the houses at Gortlandroe were being built on the site that once belonged to Dr Nugent.

Mr Malone told Cllr John Carroll that it was hoped the 17 houses in Portroe would be completed by the end of this month but there was a problem getting infrastructure connections with Uisce Éireann.

The council has plans for 189 houses in the Nenagh district, some of which are still in the early stages and others that are either nearly complete or substantially complete.

The full list is: Gortlandroe, 27; Puckane, 21; Rialto site, Banba Square, 12; William Street, 7; Woodview Close, 10; Portroe, 14; Ardcroney, 4; Tyone, 67; Springford Meadows, 19, and Glencree, Newport, 8.