Cork City Council to build more than 5,600 affordable and social houses over the next four years
The city council released details of its house building strategy to comply with targets set by the Government's "Housing For All" plan.
Top line
Cork City Council will build 5,671 houses between now and 2026 according to new figures released today.
The homes, a mix of social housing and affordable housing, are part of the Council’s Housing Delivery Action Plan and form part of the central government’s plan to build 33,000 houses a year between now and 2030.
By the numbers
Of the total of 5,671 houses, 3,934 will be social homes with the remainder 1,737 classed as affordable homes, intended for those who are not eligible for social housing but not high-earning enough to get a mortgage from a bank or other lender.
The construction of social housing will be split between the city council and Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs). Affordable housing will come via the city council, AHBs and the Land Development Agency (LDA).
The targets for both social and affordable housing are set by Department of Housing, Local Government & Heritage (DHLGH).
Dig deeper
According to the city council’s 13 page Housing Delivery Action Plan, council data shows that for social housing the greatest demand is for 1-bedroom homes, followed by “specially adapted accommodation, which would cover the areas of both age friendly and persons with disabilities.”
Of the 3,934 social houses to be built between 2022-2026, 2,385, (52%) will be built in the city suburbs, with 318, or 10% of the total to be built within the city centre.
The Docklands, down river from City Hall, an area which is set to be transformed, will see 325 social houses built over the next four years.
The biggest number of social houses (846) will be built in the northwest suburbs of the city, followed by the southeast suburbs (630).
The City Council did not release figures for where affordable houses would be constructed over the next four years, but there are currently six affordable housing schemes being developed within the city bounds.
As Tripe+Drisheen reported earlier this month, those affordable homes are going to range in price from €285,000 to €323,950 for a three bedroom house, substantially higher than an equivalent scheme in South County Dublin, where land values are typically higher that Cork, and where prices range from €245,600 to €285,300.
More resources
In its Housing Delivery Action Plan, the city council noted that to meet housing targets they will need support and resources from central government “given the scale of ambition involved particularly in the area of Affordable Housing delivery.”
“To ensure success it is critical that sufficient additional resources are approved and allocated at the appropriate professional, technical and administrative grades in the build programme, housing allocations, housing loans and housing maintenance sections of the Council.”
