Mr. John O'Connor:

I am pleased to attend this meeting to discuss vacant housing and derelict and vacant sites throughout the country in order to assist the committee in its examination of these issues. I am accompanied by my colleagues, Mr. David Silke and Ms Isoilde Dillon.

The Housing Agency was founded in 2010 with the vision of enabling everyone to live in good quality, affordable homes in sustainable communities. In this pursuit, we provide a wide level of expert advice, support, research and training for local authorities, the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, approved housing bodies, NAMA and many other public and private sector organisations. The many activities that we are involved in, together with our research, provides the agency with a unique vantage point from which to offer the committee information, advice and observations on addressing the issue of vacant housing and sites.

We have been asked to address vacant housing, derelict sites and underused spaces. In doing this, I wish to cover the issues of vacant housing, Housing Agency acquisitions through the vacant house purchase initiative, NAMA acquisitions and leasing for social housing, unfinished residential developments and derelict and vacant sites.

In May 2016, the Housing Agency’s discussion paper, Overview of Vacant Housing in Ireland, highlighting the level of vacant housing and possible actions to address this, was submitted to the Oireachtas Committee on Housing and Homelessness. Following that, pillar 5 of the Government’s Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness – Rebuilding Ireland, focused on utilising existing housing stock. The key objective identified is to ensure existing vacant housing stock throughout the country and across all forms of tenure, in both the private and public sectors, is used to the optimum degree possible. The key action from this is to develop a national vacant housing re-use strategy. In order to prepare a draft strategy for consideration by the Minister, a working group, was established, which I chair. This working group is examining ways of addressing vacant housing and is consulting with organisations and individuals in this country and abroad, including organisations such as the Empty Homes Network in England and the Scottish Empty Homes Partnership.

The key areas being examined by the working group include priority, that is, the question of how to ensure bringing vacant homes back into use is taken as a priority at national and local level. Another key area is information; how best to identify and compile registers of vacant properties and their owners. The group is examining various sources of information required to build an understanding of the scale of the problem, or the potential, which will indicate if actions and policies can be tailored to ensure effective use is made of existing resources and assets. Another key area being examined is the response structure. A critical factor informing the success of bringing vacant homes back into use will be the role played by local authorities. The immediate focus needs to be on ensuring local authorities are in a position to identify and actively engage with owners and that they have the necessary support to do this. Support at national level is critical to success.

We are consulting others, researching and analysing various approaches and actions. If committee members would like, we can discuss this in more detail during the open session. Two initiatives are being implemented, namely, the repair and lease scheme and the buy and renew scheme. These are important measures in addressing vacant housing.

In the context of the vacant house purchase initiative, the agency has been engaging with the banks on their portfolios of properties throughout the country. The objective is for the agency to utilise a €70 million rolling fund to acquire 1,600 properties by 2020. The majority of these properties would be former buy-to-let properties. To date, the agency has had bids accepted on 305 dwellings with a total value of €46.75 million. Of these, the agency has signed contracts for 217 dwellings, and 29 of these purchases have closed. The dwellings acquired will be sold to approved housing bodies to provide homes for those in need of social housing support. Under an earlier initiative in 2015 and early 2016, the agency acquired 171 properties from banks which were transferred directly to local authorities. When we engage with the banks and identify other properties suitable for local authorities, we also put in place a system to acquire them.

The agency has been working with NAMA, the Department, local authorities and approved housing bodies since 2011 to utilise properties that were part of the security to loans taken over by NAMA. To date, 2,378 properties have either been delivered or contracted for delivery to the social housing sector. It is important to note that many of these properties were vacant properties and, in most cases, required significant investment by NAMA through the property owners and receivers to make them suitable for provision as homes.

Significant work has been ongoing to resolve the main proportion of unfinished housing developments since 2010. The number of these developments has decreased from 2,846 to fewer than 500 in that period. A key aspect of the process was to identify and collect detailed data and undertake surveys on an annual basis on each development. In addition, significant time was required to engage with developers, receivers and banks on resolving the specific issues for each development. The lessons learned from this process are the need for good data, ongoing monitoring, stakeholder engagement and co-operation, and results orientation. These lessons are important in informing the approach to dealing with vacant housing and sites.

Regarding derelict sites and underused spaces, the effective implementation of the vacant sites levy is critical. This was introduced under the Urban Regeneration and Housing Act 2015 and imposes a levy of 3% of the market value of sites that are identified in a register of residential development sites and regeneration sites. Each local authority is preparing a register of relevant sites that meet certain criteria, including whether the sites are serviced and viable and there is a demand for housing in the area. The findings from other countries indicate that a site tax is an effective way of promoting housing supply and utilising vacant sites.

The two most important actions in addressing vacant housing are to identify vacant properties and to engage property owners. I cannot overemphasise this. We are pleased to elaborate on or discuss the points raised and provide more information to the committee as it sees fit. Again, I thank the committee for this opportunity to make a contribution on these important issues.