Rent hikes on agenda for 9 towns in Co Cork

Planned rent increases for some local authority tenants in Cork county will cause tempers, and temperatures, to rise at today’s yearly budget meeting.

Cork County Council is proposing to increase the rents for tenants in houses previously controlled by the county’s now-defunct nine town councils. The council executive hope to raise a further €750,000 through the targeted increases.

However, Sinn Féin councillors, in advance of the meeting, said they will strongly oppose County Hall’s proposed move.

Traditionally, town councils adopted a lower rent than the county rate, primarily as their housing units were older.

“We are totally opposed to any council rent increase during the present housing crisis,” said councillor Des O’Grady (SF).

“Some former town council tenants pay slightly lower rents than other council tenants because they generally live in housing that is older and of inferior standard,” he claimed.

He maintained the proposal was never debated by the full council or the council’s Housing Special Purposes Committee (SPC) and came at a time when the local authority has amassed an extra €2m through increasing the Local Property Tax.

Cllr O’Grady also said the measure was premature, as the Government was proposing to bring in legislation for a single Differential Rent Scheme for social housing across the State and maintained the Cork County Council was well aware of the planned scheme.

“The council should have waited for the outcome of this legislation as these tenants may now face an unjustified rent increase compared to the government scheme. This could mean that they are forced to pay out extra money that cannot be reclaimed retrospectively,” Mr O’Grady said.

He said his party will be opposing the proposed increase and will present proposals to show where the €750,000 shortfall may be found “without inflicting further financial pain on people who have already suffered years of austerity”.

The council is set to discuss its 2017 budget which will increase from €295m to €306m. The document will most likely be approved as, apart from the rent increases, there are no other serious contentious issues.

The council is to allocate €500,000 to making more of its houses energy-efficient. This year, it has upgraded 1,621 of its housing stock.

There’s good news for the business sector, in that there are no plans to hike commercial rates.

In recent years, council bosses froze rates due to businesses struggling to recover from the economic crisis.

A special €500,000 grant has been proposed to aid the new Local Community Development Committees which has been set up by the local authority to manage LEADER funding.

The council is also expected to ratify putting €1.1m into its Economic Development Fund, used to aid start-up businesses and tourism projects and have been very successful in recent years. The fund is financed from 1% of the annual rates intake.

Meanwhile, €250,000 is due to be allocated to 11 civic amenity sites to help maintain the recycling service to the public.