Council to seek approval for €5m to repair houses

A local authority has been asked to seek special government permission to borrow more than €5m in emergency funding to repair almost 500 vacant houses.

The call came last night after Cork city councillors were told there are 488 local authority homes lying vacant across the city at a time when the social housing waiting list has topped 7,500 applicants.

Councillors also heard that the city is spending up to €152,000 a year on securing the vacant homes.

Socialist Party councillor Mick Barry branded it a disgrace that the council has not been allowed to use money from the Government’s jobs stimulus package to hire people to do repairs.

“We are losing rental income from the vacant properties, and then spending public money boarding them up,” said. Mr Barry

He also expressed concern about proposals to let voluntary housing agencies take over some of the houses, repair them, and lease them to people on the social housing list, describing it as the “effective privatisation of the city’s housing stock”.

Labour councillor Denis O’Flynn led calls for Lord Mayor Catherine Clancy to lead a cross-party delegation to meet the finance minister and the housing minister, and to ask them to seek an easing of troika restrictions that would allow the council borrow funds for repairs.

A report has shown that, of the 488 vacant homes, 309 need urgent repairs, at an cost of about €5.4m.

While Mr O’Flynn rejected suggestions of a housing crisis, he said a loan should be sought for the repairs.

“These vacant houses are being used for drinking and drugs,” he said. “If they were repaired and let out, the money would back to us in rent and would service the cost of the loan.”

However, he pointed out that 38 offers of a council home were turned down in July, with 16 turned down in August. One property has been turned down seven times.

Fine Gael councillor Des Cahill said funding should be sought in tranches.

City manager Tim Lucey defended his officials’ handling of the situation, and accused certain councillors of undermining his staff by their portrayals of individual cases. He said the increase in the number of vacant houses — up 88 since 2010 — represents a fraction of the city’s overall housing stock — and is due to a €1.5m reduction in funding for maintenance.

“It’s simply down to not having funds available,” said Mr Lucey. “The reduction in funding means it is inevitable that our ability to respond to turning voids [vacant houses] to leasable properties will be affected.”

He said his officials are on target to repair between 150 and 160 vacant homes before the end of the year, and lease them out.