Rising costs could hit delivery of social housing
Some of the younger residents of the new Westview social housing development in Ballincollig, Cork, watch Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Lord Mayor of Cork city Colm Kelleher, unveil a plaque to mark the official opening of the scheme on Friday.
A €13.6m social housing scheme has been officially opened in Cork amid warnings that the rising cost of materials and financing could hit housing delivery targets.
The Westview development in Ballincollig, which was officially opened by Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Friday, was hailed as a benchmark for future social housing schemes.
It was delivered by approved housing body Respond in partnership first with Cork County Council, and then in association with Cork City Council following the 2019 city boundary extension.
Funded by a combination of private finance from the Housing Finance Agency (HFA) and a loan from the Department of Housing, it has provided homes for 65 adults and 59 children.
It features 44 homes — a mix of apartments, townhouses, and duplexes — all with private open space, all heated by air-to-water heat pumps and all with high levels of insulation to achieve an A2 BER rating for the townhouses and A2/A3 ratings for the apartments.
There are two fenced playgrounds with play equipment, soft-ground covering, and a grassed kickabout area.
The development is on the route of Ireland’s first 24-hour bus service, it is close to one of Cork’s largest regional parks, and is within walking distance of a range of services and amenities.
Mr Martin praised its high quality and said: “Housing developments such as this one are more than just about bricks and mortar.”
The chairman of Respond, John O’Connor, said the mix and design of the scheme sets the benchmark for future for social housing projects.
“It’s an excellent mix of units, houses, apartments, and duplexes. This is a feature of Irish housing now,” Mr O'Connor said.
“We have different kinds of households now and can no longer have the monlithic situation where you provide all three-bedroom housing,” he said.
“We have to target the housing now so it meets different requirements of the households we are trying to help.”
But while he welcomed the multi-annual capital commitment under the Government’s Housing For All strategy which he said gives housing bodies like Respond certainty to plan, he warned of looming challenges for the sector.
Approved housing bodies were told last week that the HFA’s 25-year fixed-rate is increasing by a half-point to 2.25% while the 30-year fixed-rate was rising by a quarter-point to 2.5%.
Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien told RTÉ over the weekend that the increase in lending rates to the main providers of social housing will not affect the future delivery of homes because the Government will provide the extra funding required from the housing budget.
But Mr O’Connor said that is just one of the challenges the sector faces.
“At the moment, delivering projects on time and on budget is not easy, it is proving difficult. A lot of things are working against us at the moment,” he said.
Material costs are increasing and financing costs are also on the rise, he said.
These are difficult issues to deal with but Respond’s approach to the challenges will be “constructive and solutions-focused”, he said.
Respond has 1,478 homes in construction. It has 1,596 tenants living in 678 homes in Cork, with a further 633 homes across 25 schemes planned in Cork.
It also runs a day-care service for older people in Blackpool, family support programmes, and homework clubs and it is due to open a new early learning and school age care service in Carraig Liath which will have capacity for 56 children.
