Enough land zoned in Galway City for 9,000 homes

Galway City Tribune – There is enough land zoned residential in Galway City to build 9,000 new houses – but the majority of it is privately owned.

Galway City councillors have been told that the bulk of the available land in the city that is zoned for new housing is in the hands of private developers.

Labour’s Niall McNelis believes there needs to be more ‘carrot and stick’ approaches to encourage landowners to develop housing and to stop hoarding land.

He believes the Government’s doubling of the vacant site levy that comes into effect this year and again in 2019, does not go far enough.

“There is plenty of zoned land; it’s just it isn’t owned by the City Council or the State. We have been told, and it is in the city’s new development plan, that there is enough land zoned in the city to accommodate 9,000 new housing units. We need developers to stop hoarding the land and to start building,” said Cllr McNelis.

The number of people on the city’s social housing is around 13,000 and homelessness and rough sleeping has increased and become more visible in recent years.

Not one social housing unit has been built in Galway City for a decade because of national policy to abandon Council housing and the recession, which meant the money dried-up for house building projects.
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