Radical housing solution proposed

A Galway West General Election candidate has called for “radical developments” to tackle the housing crisis.

Fianna Fáil Councillor Ollie Crowe said Galway was being left behind in economic and social development, while other regional cities such as Limerick had powered ahead.

“Putting in place the ultimate solution to Galway’s housing problems will take some time and therefore, a shorter-term strategy is required to get the city and county moving.

“This would take the form of a task force, appointed by government to work with Galway City and County Councils to remove the bottlenecks to progress. Its role would be to draw up an ambitious plan for the city and county, ignoring administrative boundaries, and quickly move on the implementation of this plan,” said Cllr Crowe.

This taskforce should take responsibility for the delivery of a number of planning areas, including ensuring that land should not be zoned unless services are available in the area it’s situated with the cost of servicing being recouped from developers as planning permission is granted for lands.

Pre-planning requests for meetings with officials should take place in a timely fashion and not months after contact is first made – and there should be alignment of the statutory bodies delivering infrastructural services such as ESB, the EPA, Irish Water, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, Bord Gáis and the local authority’s planning departments, he continued.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.

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