With the housing waiting list rising to almost 4,000, the ‘housing crisis’ in Galway has reached such a pitch that councillors will hold a special meeting next month dedicated solely to the issue.
The meeting will take place on Monday November 1 in City Hall and councillors will also put forward proposals to deal with the numbers of people on the list and how the Galway City Council can sell its housing stock.
The meeting will also discuss the council’s draft anti-social behaviour strategy and the quarterly housing report. Councillors will also put forward proposal.
“There is a housing crisis in the city,” said Fine Gael councillor Brian Walsh, who proposed that the meeting take place, along with Independent councillor Catherine Connolly. “There are some 3,800 on the housing waiting list. It’s growing every day and there are new applicants each month. It’s a reflection of the times with people losing their jobs. We need to deal with this.”
Cllr Walsh said such ‘special meetings’ are not common but that this reflects how important the situation is.
According to Cllr Walsh, City Hall’s ‘Affordable Housing’ stock is not selling and measures have to be taken to ensure people can actually afford to purchase the dwellings.
“They are termed affordable but many of them are actually 30 to 40 per cent of the current market prices,” he said. “We are trying to sell them as ‘affordable’ properties, but we are only fooling ourselves.
“We have to bite the bullet and sell them at less than the market prices, and we will have to go so far as to reduce them to below the current market price if we are to be true to the concept of affordable housing.”
Cllr Walsh also said the issue of boarded up houses in the city needs to be dealt with and he is calling on the council to renovate and make such buildings habitable, with a view to providing homes for people on the list.
Cllr Walsh also said that as City Hall owns land around the city it should seek to create new housing developments with a view to increasing its housing stock and providing accommodation to people on the housing waiting list.
“Galway city is unique in that we do not have an over supply of houses and the phenomena of ghost estates,” he said. “While times are tight, we should apply for Government for funding to develop our own estates and this would save us from having to rent out to landlords, which his much more costly.”
