Unreal estate

Of the 46 derelict sites listed almost three and a half years ago on Dublin City Council’s register, 18 are still on the list.

Most of the complaints to the council since the beginning of 2017 are still being looked into, and less than a quarter of the properties are back under long-term leases.

If they’re going to make an impact, they should be focused on the issue full-time – and not just be existing staff members now endowed with an extra title, says Francis Doherty, of Peter McVerry Trust.

Thousands have been wiped off it, and thousands more have been moved to a different list. The number actually getting council-owned homes remains tiny.

The council intends to use the long-vacant site for heritage purposes, says Lord Mayor Nial Ring.

Across the city in recent times, residents have complained of construction noise in the early morning, or late at night.

For years the council has been saying they will be made into apartments for people who are homeless. But that still hasn’t happened.

Within the first six months of this year, the RTB spent more on hiring rooms for hearings than it did for all of last year.

They say companies are cutting paperwork corners in ways that can mean less pay, or at least fewer benefits, for the workers.

“We have seen a lot of cranes in the Docklands but not a lot of homes. Particularly affordable homes,” says Green Party Councillor Ciarán Cuffe.

The complex used to serve as emergency accommodation for 29 homeless families.

Because the land is owned by a Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council-owned company, and not the council itself, councillors won’t get their usual say in whether it is sold at this stage.

The area around Kevin Street Upper is pockmarked with building sites.

It’s a smallish patch – but some local councillors say they’re against the idea as they grow more concerned about the lack of apartments and houses being built in the neighbourhood.

Some of the other depot sites could be used for social and affordable housing, a report to councillors says.

From a hole in the kitchen wall to drips from the ceiling, over the years Rita Cahill has catalogued an array of problems with her home, built as part of the Ballymun regeneration.

As a major landowner, state-owned Córas Impair Éireann (CIÉ) is helping to shape the city. But is it acting in the interests of all?

Dublin City Council faces challenges in its plans to renovate or rebuild more than 6,000 apartments. What will it do with those who live in the complexes?

Genna Patterson and Kevin Murray say they wanted to flag how the rent had gone up in their old apartment, but were frustrated by the rules.

There should be a comprehensive, public database of who owns the properties in the city, says Francis Doherty of Peter McVerry Trust. “It’s in the public interest, the common good.”

Iness and Michel Lunga went to the council, the RTB and the Gardaí for help, but last week had to move out. A previous tenant says he went through something similar.

It’s been more than three years since Dublin City Council said it planned to use its biggest sites for housing, including land at St Michael’s Estate.

“There are rules around bringing [new] people in, and people don’t know what they can and can’t do, which could put the tenancy at risk,” says Stephen Large of Threshold.

“We are trying to lease the entire development to the government,” said Maurice Gillick of Platinum Land.

The council had put in a bid, but says it’s been unsuccessful in securing the site – and that a private company has bought it instead.

The 88 council-owned homes are due to be redeveloped, but some residents want to know more about what the plan is – though they wonder whether they can trust whatever council officials may tell them.

There are 51 apartments in the complex, which lies south of Dundrum. In January 2017, 34 were occupied, but now only 23 are.

A “cost-rental” pilot project may deliver two-beds at a cost far below what’s on the market, says Housing Agency CEO John O’Connor.

The council says it wants mixed neighbourhoods so it tries to gets its slice of “Part V” social housing on-site in new developments. Costs mean it’s looking to relax that.

Six months ago, Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy announced plans for a cap on the deposit a landlord can ask for from a renter. It’s not in place yet.

Great news, thanks to 72 supporters, as of 30 March, we now have enough to pay a market-research firm to do this survey. Thanks everyone! We’ll get to work.

The landowners lobbied for the change and told councillors they plan to develop affordable housing there. Some councillors worry they’ll just flip it once its value rises.

They say the council consulted with them extensively early on, and incorporated some of their ideas into the plans – but then it made changes.

With help from Dubliners and the Space Engagers app, the Peter McVerry Trust hopes to identify and bring back into use 45 vacant homes by 2020.

In one part of the north inner city, more than 35 percent of households had more than one person per room. And more than 8 percent had more than 2.5 people per room. Guess which?

If it goes ahead, it would mean 50 or so homes through a cost-rental model.

The developer of this part of the site, Hines, said there was a misprint in its application and it will fulfil its obligations.

Some are concerned that many workers on building sites are falsely being classed as self-employed to keep costs down. It means they’ll miss out on supports if they lose their jobs.

Sonia Traynor feels she was duped into accepting the Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) scheme, which offers no more stability than any other private rented tenancy.

It’s unclear, as yet, if the offer will be accepted.

The Department of Housing wouldn’t give a breakdown of how much each council built in 2017, making it harder to verify. But we’ve pieced some together.

Some councillors have raised concerns that those reliant on the rent subsidy are just as vulnerable to evictions as other tenants.

Others say it doesn’t matter what type of organisations are running these new homeless hostels for families, as long as the quality of service is good, and they are well monitored.

With our friends from Banter, we organised a discussion about the social housing system, and the role it might play in easing the critical shortage of affordable housing in Dublin. If you didn’t make it to the event, you can listen to it here.

It can be a hassle to chase down whether a landlord does actually sell up when they say they plan to. So let us check for you.

They already backed plans for 50 percent private housing on the site, but hope to rework that and make it 100-percent public housing.

Recent figures for different neighbourhoods show that low-income tenants who rely on rent-subsidies are far from spread evenly across the city.

“There is nothing to stop a developer building even inside the old stone walls,” says People Before Profit Councillor Tina MacVeigh. “That’s what we’re trying to prevent.”

A chunk of the new social housing that the government has delivered in recent years has been from one source: “voids”, vacant homes that have been refurbished. But some are confused by the figures.

One woman sent the council links to 20 properties on Airbnb but was told that the council couldn’t follow it up.

In July this year, Waterways Ireland raised the water level to prevent people from sleeping or doing drugs under Binns Bridge, where Dorset Street crosses the Royal Canal.

We would like to talk to renters who have had to move when the government closed their homes for being overcrowded and/or substandard.

Some argue that a public register would help tenants to make sure the rent they are charged isn’t more than it should be. But is it worth giving up some privacy?

It hasn’t been easy to find places to put new hostels, says independent Councillor Christy Burke, who also volunteers helping homeless people.

Many council-owned apartments are sitting empty in ageing complexes scheduled to be torn down and rebuilt in the coming years. Some argue that people could live in them in the meantime.

Local residents are sceptical, wondering why the old shopping centre can’t be revived instead, and remembering all the false promises they’ve been given in the past.

Although not all shelters rule out renters, and not all landlords rule out pet owners, in Dublin’s tight rental market, being a pet lover can make things even tougher.

A copy of an independent fire inspector’s report, released under the Freedom of Information Act, does not appear to clear the building as fire-safe and ready for occupancy.

The council owns 11 hectares in Belmayne, perhaps enough for 1,000 new homes. One councillor wonders why the council isn’t working faster to develop it.

As government thinks about how best to regulate the conversion of apartments from homes into short-term holiday lets, companies continue their conversions.

While there are concerns about how a planned redevelopment of Newmarket Square will affect local businesses, the developers behind the project say it will be good for everybody.

Some argue that the way the government currently gets social housing from some developers is bad value for money.

Oppermann Associates, which was also the architect on the troubled Priory Hall development, was architect on at least one of the schools recently found to have fire-safety defects.

A rapid-build structure put up by Western Building Systems, the NSAI inspected it in 2009, and since 2014 it has been embroiled in a court case.

Imagine you’ve invested in land in Dublin. How might government policies affect whether you hoard it or not? Play our game to see. Illustrations by Aidan Harte.

Architect Gregory Jackson wants to roll-out a co-housing project in Foxrock. But there are challenges.

The Office of the Information Commissioner has ruled that the Department of Education must release fire-safety reports for a number of schools. The department has four weeks to appeal.

The housing charity Threshold says it’s had an increased number of calls from people who are being evicted on the grounds of “substantial refurbishment”.

Government LIHAF subsidies to private developers, meant in part to produce affordable housing, might produce a 0.5 percent discount on a €470,000 home.

“Our research repeatedly shows that the largest single cause of family homelessness is landlords selling up and using loopholes in the law to evict families,” says Mike Allen of Focus Ireland.

“People are sitting on assets and they don’t need the rent,” says Francis Doherty, communications officer at the Peter McVerry Trust.

Some say they welcome the planned redevelopment of the square, but that it would be a loss to the city if existing businesses did not form part of its future.

A group of entrepreneurial Dubliners are eyeing up the land at St Michael’s Estate for a different kind of affordable housing, built through a community land trust.

“Sleeping bags are provided to clients as a humanitarian response when there is no accommodation available,” says the DRHE. But rough-sleepers say that doesn’t always happen.

The site has been subject to a half-dozen planning applications over the last number of years. It’s on the council’s Vacant Sites Register, but its owners are appealing that.

Dublin City Councillors sometimes agree to sell off a property with the proviso that the buyer must start redeveloping it within months. That doesn’t always happen.

Dublin city councillors voted to set up a group to look at solutions to damp and condensation, and learnt that they have partial access to social-housing-list details.

Some letting agents don’t limit the number of people invited to viewings of up-for-rent homes, so as many as 100 might show up. Some say it’s fair, others that it’s heartless.

In cities such as Belfast and Glasgow, only a small number of beds for homeless people are night-time-only. Can, and should, we move away from them here?

Councillors in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown want more details on how affordable homes will be on a site in Cherrywood that’s been allocated part of a €200 million government fund.

In this book, which offers lessons for Dublin, Peter Moskowitz looks at the growing inequality of American cities – and how planning and housing policies have pushed aside the poorest.

Hugh Brennan says that the Ó Cualann Cohousing Alliance has the capacity to scale up.

Dublin City Council has only one conservation officer, and it lost its only buildings-at-risk officer back in 2009.

As Dublin City Council rolls out its nine planned “family hubs”, some are asking who is going to be keeping an eye on standards and child-protection.

The government has chosen the housing projects that will get LIHAF money, which requires developers to commit to some affordability. But it seems it doesn’t have final agreements on how much.

Richard Florida, author of 2002’s “The Rise of the Creative Class”, is back with a follow-up that looks at soaring housing prices in the world’s most successful cities, and offers some solutions.

At meetings this week, councillors discussed where exactly “family hubs” for homeless families will be, and settled on social and affordable housing figures for Poolbeg West.

As more sites are lined up for office buildings and apartment complexes, some are wondering how best to make sure that local residents benefit from the work it will bring.

Plans for the Poolbeg SDZ would make 10% of 3,500 homes social housing. Councillors want to double or triple that, and add affordable housing too. They’re preparing for a showdown.

A project by developer Hines in Cherrywood, for example, got €15.19 million in funding, meant to encourage affordable housing, for which there is as yet no plan in place.

Part of the facade was apparently removed just before councillors voted to start the process of putting the building on the list of protected structures.

Dublin City Council can force owners of derelict sites to sell to them, but it has only done that rarely in the past. This year, things are beginning to change.

When fire broke out at 1/2 Mountjoy Square in February, some pointed to a history of planning complaints at the property.

There’s a plan to build “affordable” housing on some council lands. But what does “affordable” mean, who would build it, and who would live there?

While obstacles discouraging their owners from opening them up and renting them out seem well understood, progress on smoothing the way has been slow.

“I’m curious as to why this is happening … suddenly there’s a load of it. Is it EU grant led?” asks a reader.

If your commute runs south from the city past Cherrywood, you might have noticed a row of boarded-up properties on Bray Road. Why are they empty?

Even while there’s a shortage of housing for Dubliners, companies have converted residential apartment blocks in the city into holiday lets for tourists.

Dublin City Council and the Department of Housing are looking at further regulating Airbnb, amid concerns it could be contributing to the housing shortage.

There were no beds available for women in homeless hostels on 15 February, according to Dublin Regional Homeless Executive. And some say it wasn’t a one-night problem.

At their monthly housing committee meeting, councillors talked about plans to further research the impact of Airbnb on the housing market, and more.

Some councillors are wary about whether the council’s strategy for moving homeless families from hotels by 1 July is going work.

First announced back in 2014, the effort to get a group of households to build a home on a vacant city-centre site has been chalked up as good idea, wrong time.

Rough sleepers and people living in emergency accommodation are counted as homeless. But couch-surfers, squatters, car-sleepers and many others are left out of the statistics.

Some councillors argue that Dublin City Council carries out unnecessary and costly works on vacant council homes, when they’re in decent condition and tenants are eager to move in.

Dublin City Councillors have agreed to sell the old Aungier House pub on the corner of Aungier Street and Digges Street. The new owners have plans.

Best practice standards that relate to sharing rooms, outlined in 1999, are still not being adhered to 18 years on.

But did the government push Apollo House residents to the front of the queue? A look at Dublin’s two-tiered system of emergency accommodation for homeless people.

When Dublin City Council released its vacant sites register this month, it was entirely blank. Some ask why the council didn’t at least list its own sites.

Some buildings are so badly designed it’s nearly impossible to keep it at bay, no matter how much we open windows, run ventilator fans, and wipe walls with bleach or Fairy liquid.

When Dublin City Council says that less than 1 percent of its housing stock is “void”, some Dubliners are confused. That might be because of how it counts.

It was once “a hive of industry”, a neighbour said. But the buildings went derelict one after another during the 1980s and 1990s, says a local business owner.

Chris Lynch hopes greater transparency in the sector will push landlords to improve standards, and help those with a choice to make informed decisions.

Even in the midst of a housing shortage, the city is dotted with vacant and derelict properties. We’ve mapped 389 of them and we’re open to more suggestions.

Dublin City Council is still working out whether to move ahead with the homes on big boats for students, workers, or tourists. But as the city debates it, Dun Laoghaire is pressing ahead.

There aren’t delays at the Department of Housing right now, Keegan told councillors. The council is slow in getting projects to the department for approval.

Like many buildings across the city, the historic pub has been left vacant and allowed to crumble. The developer says it’s no longer possible to preserve it.

Belfast has specific rules for “houses of multiple occupancy” but Dublin doesn’t. Even though the housing crisis means many are crammed into shared spaces.

Spread over more than 3,000 square metres, the old mills site in Kilmainham has been empty since the year 2000. Plans for it have come and gone.

At last week’s Dublin City Council housing committee meeting, councillors discussed who’s monitoring homeless services and how to make sure you aren’t removed from the social housing list.

There is an acute housing shortage across the city, but there are also some homes that are affordable for couples on average wages. How is that?

Barber Eddie Wykes used to both live and work in this four-storey vacant building on Upper Abbey Street. It needed to be knocked down some time ago, he says.

As the old flat complex in the north inner city is torn down, have councillors made the right choice for what will replace it?

Work is underway, says Brian Montague one of the owners of The Legal Eagle pub on Chancery Place. It’s been delayed but not forgotten.

With seven buildings full of artists’ studios across the city, has MART found a sustainable model to provide affordable spaces for the city’s artists to work in?

Once popular with George’s Quay locals and Trinity students, it closed in March 2015. Now it is “OPENING SOON”, according to a sign in the window. Is it really, though?

In the latest in our vacancy watch series, we look at another disused strip of Aungier Street you might have noticed.

A year ago, Dublin City Council and housing activists clashed in court over the occupation of a vacant Bolton Street building. It’s still empty.

The council is looking at putting up multi-storey buildings in the city centre made of stackable prefab homes. But there’s still a lot we don’t know about its first batch of rapid-build homes.

The two Dublin areas with the highest proportions of vacant dwellings aren’t exactly synonymous with vacancy.

The old City Arts building on Moss Street used to be a hub. Nowadays, it’s more of a shell. Here’s what happened.

Do property owners have a right to privacy? Do residents have the right to know who owns a vacant or derelict property that’s ruining their neighbourhood?

“No rent allowance or HAP accepted sorry,” said the text alert, even though since 1 January landlords aren’t allowed to discriminate in this way.

In an April letter to minister Alan Kelly, Dublin City Council chief Owen Keegan suggested that the rule encouraged people “to enter the ‘homeless’ system”.

Progress on Cherry Orchard rapid-builds, Dominick St and Charlemont St. Delays with the lands initiative and at St Teresa’s Gardens. Danger at O’Devaney.

What’s happening with what should be a tasty piece of land? The answer is a slightly complicated.

For more than 30 years, these prime homes in Ballsbridge have been partially vacant. At one time, they were 30 bedsits.

“Vacancy watch!” wrote in Davey Donnelly, with a photo of an apartment block on James Street. “Vacant as long as I’ve been in the area.” What’s the story?

In Dublin 6, nine empty social housing units might soon be filled. It’s taken a lot longer than it should have.

Other cities with housing shortages have cracked down on the landlords who rent out apartments to tourists on Airbnb instead of to long-term local tenants. At least one Dublin city councillor wants to look into doing the same here.

Dublin City Council spends millions every year on hotel rooms, B&Bs and hostels for people with nowhere else to live. And it wants them to know they have rights while staying there.

When Dublin City Council looked at why people were becoming homeless, the problem of overcrowding featured high on the list.

The Screen cinema is closed, Hawkins House is to be demolished, and Luas tracks are being laid. What’s afoot around George’s Quay?

Squatters were evicted from the property last year. It was sold and left vacant for months, and now it’s been reoccupied. In a time of housing shortage, it’s home to at least 30 people – and soon, perhaps, more.

There are single people living in big houses, and families living in rooms. What’s the solution to the mismatch?

For developments that are in the pipeline, is there any way to speed them up?

Three-bedrooom houses in Dublin should ideally be at least 100 sqm, a standard the council held an Ailesbury Rd development to in September. But smaller homes are apparently okay in Poppintree, for rapid-build houses, for homeless families.

As the Luas Red Line glides through Dublin’s city centre, it passes trash-strewn empty lots, vacant patches, and boarded-up buildings. Is it ever going to change?

It looks like the battle by the homeless families trying to avoid eviction from emergency accommodation is coming to a close.

A reader asked us to look into how many vacant properties the HSE has in the Dublin area, and whether they could be used for housing. Here’s what we found out.

Fairview residents and councillors want to see Thomas Clarke’s home maintained better, and perhaps turned into a museum or community centre.

If the route to fixing the housing crisis is all about adding supply, it’s not looking too good.

People working in the industry say that it was always an impossible mission to get the homes ready before Christmas.

“Is there going to be anything done with Aldborough House?” a reader asked. “It seems a great shame to let it go to waste.” So, we thought we’d do an update.

Construction is underway in the area that some developers have renamed “SOBO”, or South of Beckett O’Casey. But long-time local residents aren’t completely happy with how it’s all going.

At the moment, about 120 creatives from web developers to performers work in the Block T building on all kinds of projects. They’re looking for a new home.

If you’ve recently found yourself on Dawson Street, you’ll have noticed the mound of rubble where a large office block once stood.

At their monthly meeting on Monday, councillors voted to press ahead with the first major Dublin City Council housing project since the economic crash.

As the council struggles to find enough accommodation for a growing number of homeless people, residents’ rights have eroded and housing standards have slipped, say councillors and agencies.

More studio spaces close each year, and Dublin artists say something needs to change. But what’s the solution?

Why is it that when you pull the skin off so many of these shiny boom-time apartment buildings, they turn out to have rotten cores?

Regulations that came into effect in 2013 effectively banned bedsits. Is enforcement of these rules pushing people into homelessness?

Dublin City Council says it’ll install 22 modular houses for homeless families on a site in Poppintree before Christmas. But a housing co-op already has plans for the site.

People living near Herbert Park have been lobbying Dublin City Council to fix it up. Last week, the council revealed its new draft plan to do that.

But still, nobody will fess up to being responsible for the poor conditions in the first place: mildew-caked ceilings, exposed electrical wires and damp.

Has the ban achieved its goals: greater diversity of tenure and a better social mix in the area? And should it remain in place?

On Monday, small groups stopped to say goodbye to the last of the Ballymun’s iconic towers, Joseph Plunkett. On Tuesday late afternoon, engineers began to demolish it.

How much should the council spend on prefabs for homeless families? Where should the new homes go? And how fast can they be brought online? Winter is coming.

In the coming months, expect to hear more ideas from councillors on how to tap in to underused inner-city buildings in Dublin.

There have been calls to increase rent supplement rates to keep more families from becoming homeless, but Labour Minister Alan Kelly says that would lead to an increase in rents. Is he right?

Dublin City Council is desperate for hotel rooms for homeless families. Does that mean hotel owners can set any conditions they want?

Dublin City Council has taken two housing activists, who have helped open an abandoned council building on Bolton Street to house homeless people, to court for trespassing.

Dublin City Council doesn’t want housing activists to move homeless families into the abandoned hostel now, perhaps because of a plan from an organisation called Novas Initiatives to turn it into social housing later.

In recent weeks, housing activists in Dublin squatted a council building to house homeless families. Could it be the start of an unlikely alliance?

Plans for a new National Children’s Hospital in Dublin 8 have area residents worried about traffic, parking, noise, subsidence and drainage.

Long Lane residents have faced regular vandalism and a brush with gangland crime. What is it about this street?

Dublin City Council has begun planning for the construction of 400 prefabricated houses to accommodate homeless families. While some councillors are very wary, prefab housing has come a long way over the years and other countries have good experiences with it.

There are about 21,000 applicants on the social housing list in Dublin, and no plans to build enough homes for them. Here are the stories of two, who have been drifting, rootless, for years, hoping against hope.

At the Dublin Food Co-op in The Liberties, about 35 people turned up to chat about starting a housing co-op, as a way to get themselves an affordable – and democratic – home.

When the crash hit, Blackpitts was left with craters of empty, derelict sites. With over 600 new bed spaces, plus bars, restaurants, offices, and more on the way, can it cope when developers come crawling back?