INDEPENDENT councillor Maria Donoghue has called on Limerick City and County Council to outline the steps it is currently taking to engage with owners of vacant and derelict buildings across Limerick City and its environs to bring them back to occupation.
Cllr Donoghue’s question comes amid the ongoing housing shortage across Limerick city and county, and the rest of Ireland, and as reports last week of rents in Limerick City skyrocketing by 95 per cent since the Covid pandemic.
In reply to Cllr Donoghue at the Metropolitan District meeting for May, head of the Council’s Property Management Services, Jayne Leahy, said that the local authority takes a “pro-active, place-based approach” to identifying and activating derelict sites and vacant homes for more beneficial uses in local communities.
“The Council operates the activation programme under a number of government policies, in particular: Housing For All, Town Centre First, Our Rural Future, and statutory legislation of the Derelict Sites Act 1990, the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015, and the Housing Act 1966,” Ms Leahy explained at the monthly Metropolitan District meeting.
The Council, Ms Leahy continued, also administers the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant on behalf of the Department of Housing, Local Government, and Heritage.
The Council head of Property Management services told Cllr Donoghue that “owners of derelict and vacant properties can benefit from grants of up to €70,000 either to refurbish their property for occupation as a principal private residence or to make it available to the private rental market”.
