Threat to upgrade of 'dreadful' flats

THE REDEVELOPMENT of a “desperate, dreadful” local authority housing complex in one of the most prosperous areas of the State may be in jeopardy due to the “inflexibility” of the Department of the Environment, it was claimed yesterday.

Beech Hill Terrace is a 1960s development of 25 one-room flats in Donnybrook, Dublin 4.

“They are like cells,” according to Dermot Lacey, chairman of the Dublin City Council Housing Strategic Policy Committee.

“They are awful. They have to be improved,” he said.

Each flat consists of a small entrance area, off which is a shower-room, with toilet and sink.

In one flat, the living area is about 24ft by 15ft, able to just about accommodate a double bed and a small table and a chest of drawers. Off this is a tiny kitchen in which one person can stand, with cooker, fridge, sink and small counter area.

Denise O’Herlihy (66) has lived in her flat since 1996. “It’s so cold here at night I put a towel against the wall by my bed for fear I would roll against it and freeze,” she said. The cold would kill you here in winter.”

Her rent to Dublin City Council is €24.50 a week.

“Ideally I would like to live in a house,” Ms O’Herlihy said.

“I have no space here. I am dreadfully lonely, depressed. I cry a lot.”

The Royal Hospital Voluntary Housing Association is keen to redevelop and refurbish Beech Hill Terrace and has been in discussion with Dublin City Council.

Although at a “preliminary stage”, Mr Lacey says there will be a funding gap between the €500,000 the housing association is able to invest and the cap of 30 per cent seed funding the council can provide, under the rules of the Department of the Environment’s new capital advance leasing facility scheme.

The scheme, which came into force earlier this year, replaced one under which up to 100 per cent seed funding for social housing could be drawn down by housing associations from local authorities.

“The department’s complete inflexibility on this stupid one-size-fits-all rule may mean this redevelopment can’t go ahead,” Mr Lacey added.

“And instead these awful flats will fall further into disrepair, the council will end up having to leave them go derelict, there will be no rent coming in and it will have to put security in place to guard them.

“It will end up costing more to let them fall apart than the difference between the 30 per cent cap and what’s needed. A small bit of flexibility would make a huge difference.”

A council spokesman said plans for Beech Hill Terrace were at a “very early stage” and no decisions had been taken.

A spokeswoman for the Irish Council for Social Housing said the 30 per cent cap on State seed funding for social housing was “causing problems for housing associations all over the country”.

She said: “The rule may work in some parts of the country but in others, particularly urban, high-demand areas, it is proving almost impossible for housing associations to raise 70 per cent of the seed funding needed.”

The Department of the Environment did not comment on the accusations of inflexibility levelled at it yesterday.