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For Written Answer on : 09/09/2024
Question Number(s): 865 Question Reference(s): 35470/24
Department: Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Asked by: David Stanton T.D.
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QUESTION
To ask the Minister for Housing; Local Government and Heritage the way his Department is supporting local authorities to purchase and renovate closed shops and other commercial premises in town centres to make them available as social housing; the amount provided to each local authority in 2022, 2023 and to date in 2024 to enable such activity to take place, in tabular form; the corresponding number of homes made available as a result in each local authority area; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
REPLY
All local authorities are fully supported by my Department to purchase and renovate former shops, other commercial premises or any suitable premises in town centres, in order to make them available as social housing. In such situations, our local authorities can utilise the capital funding programmes available from my Department for social housing and there is no cap or restriction on the number of such projects that can be undertaken, other than the individual projects being reasonable value for money. My Department covers 100% of the development costs for new social homes whether they are the renewal of existing buildings including former commercial premises, or new build projects.
A range of projects that are based on town centre vacant/derelict buildings have been completed as new social homes by the local authorities and I am happy to continue to support further such projects. As local authorities have full sanction to undertake such projects based on vacancy, my Department does not separately record the original use of the converted buildings.
To continue to support the productive re-use of vacant town centre properties across a range of uses, planning regulations introduced in 2018 which exempted certain vacant commercial premises, including ‘over the shop’ type spaces, from requiring planning permission to change to residential purposes, have been extended until 2025. The scope of the exemption was also extended to include ‘public houses’. Notifications from developers when commencing such works, are being recorded by the local authorities who will be providing annual returns to my Department.
For the years 2018-2023, notifications received by local authorities under planning permission exemptions for converting commercial property into homes, show that 1,165 such notifications were received from developers. Further information on the number of notifications received from local authorities is available at the link below;
