The Lord Mayor of Dublin has said that he would like to see supermarket staff and some other professions classed as "key workers" who would be eligible for cost rental homes under a new council plan to rejuvenate derelict buildings in the city centre.
Lord Mayor Ray McAdam said that gardaí, teachers, and nurses would be eligible for these homes, but that the council will have to discuss with the Department of Housing and Local Government about what other types of workers will also be able to live in them.
It comes as Dublin City Council unanimously adopted a plan that would see land rezoned with the aim to provide 25,000 extra housing units between now and 2032.
This would come on top of the council's current plan in which 49,000 homes are currently zoned.
The majority of new units in the plan adopted this week, 13,800, are set to come from industrial estates in Kylemore and Glasnevin.
The accommodation earmarked for key workers falls under a new rejuvenation pilot, which will be focused on North Frederick St and Middle Abbey St as well as their surrounding areas.
This aims to "transform derelict, vacant, and underused buildings into new cost-rental homes for key workers and into new commercial, retail, or mixed-use spaces, alongside public realm improvements and street activation measures".
If successful, it will be expanded to other areas of the city centre, the council says.
Speaking to RTÉ, Mr McAdam described vacant buildings and dereliction as the city’s "social crime", and said he hopes this plan will address it.
He said he wants a "living city where we have key worker homes above our shops".
With key workers in line to be eligible for these homes, some have been querying who will meet that definition.
"I would describe key workers, as gardaí, nurses, teachers. Those people who keep this city going on a daily basis," Mr McAdam said.
"And for too many at the moment, those people are priced out of the communities in which they live, and by having the level of vacant or derelict properties or buildings that we have in that city, being able to turn them into cost rental homes or affordable apartments, they’ll be able to live in the communities in which they serve."
The Fine Gael councillor added that he would also like to see other occupations, like those who work in supermarkets, as key workers too as they were "central" to keeping supply chains going during the pandemic.
"These are things we will have to work out in partnership with the Department of Housing and Local Government."
When asked whether there is a risk that key workers might have to give up their accommodation if they decided to change careers, Mr McAdam said the priority should be delivering the units first, and that they "will be able to work all of that out as we get into it".
He said the council will work with property owners to help them de-risk properties and turn them around, but added that owners who don’t work with the council "will suffer and experience tougher enforcement".
Speaking to RTÉ’s This Week radio programme, the council’s Assistant Chief Executive for Housing Mick Mulhern said the overall strategy has four key areas.
"The first one is out in an area called Boombridge, just beside Glasnevin, that’s going to be called Boombridge-Hamilton and there’s about 77 hectares of land out there where we see potential for about 8,500 more homes.
"The consultation on that starts on Tuesday and it will take about four or five months to fully go through the statutory process to get that into a plan. So hopefully that will be done in quarter one next year.
"The second big area is out in Kylemore, at the City Edge lands, and a lot of the land in that area is owned by the Land Development Agency. That’s 55 hectares of land, there’s a potential for a further 5,500 homes and the plan is to get that in place, and into the plan-making process in quarter two next year.
"The third intervention will be, across the city today, we’ve got 17 what we call 'strategic regeneration areas’ where we’ve already made a plan for those places but we see potential, through changes, apartment guidelines, compact sustainable growth, there’s potential to get more homes into those places.
"And we think there’s potential for somewhere between 6,000 and 8,000 homes across those locations in the city just by better urban planning," he said.
Mr Mulhern said he expects to see those changes coming in quarter three.
"Then the final change which we’re still working on but we want to have in place by the end of the year is that there are some smaller and industrial locations where we think there is an opportunity for more, with some more work to think about some smaller zonings which have the potential we think at this stage to unlock a further 2,000 units," he said.
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"So all of those measures together, next year, will see us increase our zoning potential from 49,000 by a further 25,000 homes."
Mr Mulhern said there are a lot of landowners who have been engaged with and are "ready to move forward" with plans.
When asked about businesses in industrial area that have been zoned who may not want to leave, Mr Mulhern said "we’re not going to be going out and telling businesses who have no intention of moving today or tomorrow to do that".
"There’s really viable businesses in those places, they perform an incredibly important role for the city, but there’s great potential outside of those businesses that don’t need to move," he said.
"And in ten years' time a lot of those businesses may change their mind, they may not, but nonetheless we still see some significant potential for housing delivery in those locations."
