CITY TRIBUNE
Exodus of landlords from Galway City rental sector
From the Galway City Tribune – There has been an exodus of landlords from Galway City’s rental market, which is pushing people into homelessness, Chief Executive of Galway City Council, Brendan McGrath has warned.
Mr McGrath said that despite high rents, single-property landlords were selling-up to cash in on the high market values available currently for homes for sale.
He said this was pushing tenants to find properties to rent at higher prices, or face becoming homeless.
In an update to city councillors, Mr McGrath said that some 2,000 private landlords were leaving the rental market in Ireland every year. And half of them are issuing Notices of Termination because they are selling their property.
“This is ultimately driving many tenants into homelessness,” he said.
“The exodus of private landlords from the rental sector is being mirrored in Galway City with the latest figures showing that 37% of Notices of Termination issued to date in 2022 are for the purposes of sale with the consequent further depletion of private rented stock,” Mr McGrath warned.
He said that the vast majority of landlords (86%), own one or two properties.
Although Galway is in a Rent Pressure Zone, which protects tenants against excessive rent increases, he said this was having a negative knock-on effect.
“One of the negative unintended consequences of the rent pressure zone regulations is the unequal treatment between private landlords within Rent Pressure Zones such as Galway City. Where properties are on a first rental and in cases where properties have not been rented for a two-year period, landlords are free to charge market rent.
“Other private landlords in the same area who did not increase their rents to market level before the RPZ regulations took effect are currently confined to a maximum of 2% rental increase annually at present which has resulted in their properties being devalued.
“This can force many affected landlords to end tenancies and gain vacant possession so that they can achieve market value by selling the property to an owner-occupier. The tenant then must find another property at much higher rent or face becoming homeless,” Mr McGrath said.
He said the “problems of rental inflation and affordability challenges coupled with severe shortages of supply in the private rented market” in the city was reflected in the social rented sector too.
Mr McGrath warned that private landlords are exiting the RAS and leasing schemes and people who have qualified for Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) supports “are finding it increasingly difficult to obtain private rented accommodation in the city”.
He said that the number of Notices to Quit in HAP had “significantly increased” and there were 77 in the first three months of this year alone.
“In order to preserve the stock of private rented properties, a review of the taxation regime and the RPZ regulations in the private rented sector is required,” Mr McGrath added.
His analysis echoes that of a number of local housing charities and reports from independent agencies such as Daft.ie which have documented turmoil in the local housing market for buyers and renters.
Meanwhile, almost 100 tenants in private rented properties in the county have been issued with notices to quit so far this year – because private landlords are either leaving the market or hiking the rents.
And that number is set to increase – leaving dozens of families with a headache to find alternative accommodation.
Chief Executive of Galway County Council, Jim Cullen, confirmed that validated Notices to Quit have been issued to tenants in private accommodation.
It is understood that these tenants had been on the County Council’s housing waiting list and had secured accommodation in the private sector – but many owners of these properties want out of the rental market.
“These Notices to Quit are increasing significantly as landlords leave the market or seek higher rents that the Housing Assistance Payments (HAP) cannot compete with,” Mr Cullen confirmed.
Housing Assistance Payments is a support provided by the local authority on a monthly basis to landlords, while tenants who qualify for HAP make a contribution towards the rent based on their household income.
From the Galway City Tribune – An impassioned plea for a ‘masterplan’ that would guide Galway City into the future has been made in the Dáil. Galway West TD Catherine Connolly stated this week that there needed to be an all-inclusive approach with “vision and leadership” in order to build a sustainable city.
Deputy Connolly spoke at length at the crisis surrounding traffic and housing in Galway city and said that not all of the blame could be laid at the door of the local authority.
She said that her preference would be the provision of light rail as the main form of public transport, but that this would have to be driven by the government.
“I sat on the local council for 17 years and despaired at all of the solutions going down one road, metaphorically and literally. In 2005 we put Park & Ride into the development plan, but that has not been rolled out. A 2016 transport strategy was outdated at the time and still has not been updated.
“Due to the housing crisis in the city, a task force was set up in 2019. Not a single report or analysis has been published on the cause of the crisis,” added Deputy Connolly.
She then referred to a report from the Land Development Agency (LDA) that identified lands suitable for the provision of housing. But she said that two-thirds of these had significant problems and a large portion was in Merlin Park University Hospital which, she said, would never have housing built on it.
In response, Minister Simon Harris spoke of the continuing job investment in the city and also in higher education, which is his portfolio.
But turning his attention to traffic congestion, he accepted that there were “real issues” when it came to transport, mobility and accessibility around Galway.
“We share the view that we need a Park & Ride facility and I understand there are also Bus Connects plans.
“I also suggest that the City Council reflect on her comments. I am proud to be in a Government that is providing unparalleled levels of investment to local authorities and unparalleled opportunities for local authorities to draw down,” he said.
Then Minister Harris referred to the controversial Galway City Outer Ring Road which he said was “struck down by An Bord Pleanála”, despite a lot of energy having been put into that project.
However, Deputy Connolly picked up on this and pointed out that An Bord Pleanála did not say ‘No’ to the ring road.
“The High Court said ‘No’ to the ring road because An Bord Pleanála acknowledged it failed utterly to consider climate change and our climate change obligations.
“That tells us something about An Bord Pleanála and the management that submitted such a plan.”
In the end, Minister Harris agreed that there needed to be a masterplan for Galway City.
“I suggest it is for the local authority to come up with a vision and then work with the Government to try to fund and implement that.”
The new Salmon Weir pedestrian and cycle bridge will be officially opened to the public next Friday, May 26.
Work on the €10 million bridge got underway in April 2022, before the main structure was hoisted into place in early December.
A lunchtime tape-cutting ceremony will take place on Friday, as the first pedestrians and cyclists traverse the as-yet-unnamed bridge.
The Chief Executive of Galway City Council, Brendan McGrath, previously said the bridge, once opened, would remove existing conflicts between pedestrians, cyclists and traffic “as well as facilitating the Cross-City Link public transport corridor over the existing 200-year-old bridge”.
The naming of the new bridge has been under discussion by the Council’s Civic Commemorations Committee since late last year.
One name that has been in the mix for some time is that of the first woman in Europe to graduate with an engineering degree – Alice Perry.
Ms Perry, who was from Wellpark, graduated from Queen’s College Galway (now University of Galway) in 1906. The university’s engineering building is named in her honour.
The bridge was built by Jons Civil Engineering firm in County Meath and was assembled off-site before being transported to Galway. Funding for the project was provided in full by the National Transport Authority and the European Regional Development Fund.
(Photo: Sheila Gallagher captured the city’s new pedestrian footbridge being raised on the south side of the Salmon Weir Bridge in December. It will officially open next Friday, May 26).
From the Galway City Tribune – Minister of State for Local Government and Planning, Kieran O’Donnell was labelled a “disgrace” for overturning councillors’ decisions to rezone land in the new City Development Plan.
Minister O’Donnell (pictured) confirmed in a letter to Council Chief Executive Brendan McGrath last week that he was reversing 25 material alternations made by councillors to the CDP 2023-29. He made the decision on the advice of Office of Planning Regulator (OPR).
Minister O’Donnell directed that 14 land parcels that were subject to land-use zoning changes by councillors as part of the Material Alterations to the Draft CDP should be reversed.
He directed that a further 11 land parcels in the city should become “unzoned”.
The Minister found that the CDP had not been made in a manner consistent with recommendations of the OPR, which required specific changes to the plan to ensure consistency with the national planning laws and guidelines.
At last week’s Council meeting Cllr Eddie Hoare (FG) asked for clarity on the process by which councillors could rezone the lands that had been changed by the Minister’s direction.
Cllr Declan McDonnell said, “What he [Minister O’Donnell] has done is an absolute disgrace”.
And he asked: “Do we have to have another development plan meeting to deal with it?”
Both Cllrs Hoare and McDonnell wondered what would become of the lands that were rezoned or unzoned by the ministerial direction.
Mr McGrath said the Council had put forward an argument in favour of retaining the material alterations in the plan, but ultimately the Minister sided with OPR.
He said if councillors want to make alterations to the new plan, they could go through the process of making a material alteration but this was lengthy.
The Save Roscam Peninsula campaign welcomed the Minister’s decision.
In a statement to the Galway City Tribune, it said the direction would mean the Roscam village area on the Roscam Peninsula will be unzoned and a number of land parcels would revert back to agriculture/high amenity.
A spokesperson for the campaign said: “the material alterations made by city councillors following lobbying by developers continued the long-standing practice of councillors facilitating a developer-led plan rather than an evidence- and policy-based plan that meets the needs of the city.
“The Minister’s direction is an important step in restoring confidence in the planning system. It is clear from the City Council’s own evidence on future housing projections that there was no requirement to zone these lands for residential purposes in order to meet the needs of the targeted population increase up to 2029,” the spokesperson added.
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