Housing association Clúid is to meet Dublin city councillors next week over the failure of a north Dublin cost-rental scheme that was meant to be built on land provided by the local authority.
Councillors have questioned the legitimacy of Clúid’s decision to scrap the cost-rental element of the complex of more than 140 apartments in Cabra and change it to 100 per cent social housing.
Clúid, one of the State’s largest non-profit housing bodies, is building 144 homes on the site at Bannow Road, close to Broombridge rail station.
Most of the homes were designated for social housing, but 40 were to be used for a cost-rental scheme to provide homes for workers who earn too much to qualify for social housing but cannot afford private market rents.
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The council said it had been informed by Clúid that it “can no longer deliver” the 40 cost-rental homes as this “element of the scheme is unviable” due to rising costs.
In response to queries, Clúid said the future maintenance costs at Bannow Road had pushed the cost-rental element beyond viability.
“Rising costs in areas such as planned maintenance, cyclical costs and component replacement mean that it would not be possible to deliver these as cost-rental homes with rents 25 per cent below market rate,” it said.
Clúid has applied to the Department of Housing to change the designation of 40 of the 144 homes from cost-rental to social homes and was “confident” the department would support it.
A spokesman for the department said it would consider the application.
[ Dublin cost-rental scheme dropped over rising costsOpens in new window ]
Independent councillor Cieran Perry said the council transferred the site to Clúid on the basis that cost-rental housing would be provided there.
“It is not up to Clúid to decide what tenure or income mix would be on the site, and it is concerning that they have already applied to the Department of Housing,” he said.
“I don’t think we can have a private company basically changing housing policy.”
The decision must not be made without consultation with councillors, Perry added.
“We won’t be accepting Clúid making this decision regardless of what the Department of Housing did say. We agreed to the disposal on the basis we were getting cost-rental in Cabra.”
Sinn Féin councillor Séamas McGrattan said there was huge disappointment locally over the loss of the cost-rental element.
“This was the option for people who don’t meet the criteria for social housing – that option is now gone.”
The fact Clúid had cited the cost of future maintenance rather than construction as making the scheme unviable was of particular concern, he added. “I think it makes every cost-rental project in the city now unviable.”
