Rundown areas of city set for New Year facelift

Plans for ‘urban regeneration’ targeted at certain parts of Galway City will be advanced early in the New Year.

Finance Minister, Michael Noonan has confirmed that his department officials held discussions in December with Galway City Council in relation to the identities of areas in the city that could be included in the ‘Living City Initiative’.

The project is targeted at Galway, Limerick, Waterford, Dublin, Cork and Kilkenny. It will see tax-breaks and other relief incentives targeted at inner-city retail and residential areas that are suffering from ‘urban decay’.

The idea is to rejuvenate the city and attract more residents back to living in the city centre as well as reviving the central businesses. It will target in particular run-down and dilapidated vacant residential and business buildings in need of refurbishment.

The project is to be funded by the European Union.

The Minister said he hopes to be in a position to unveil the scheme in the coming months.

A similar scheme in the 1980s regenerated Galway and rid it of the blight of a large number of decayed and derelict buildings.

Minister Noonan said: “Officials from my Department have held preliminary discussions with the relevant local authorities to identify the areas of the six cities, Cork, Dublin, Galway, Kilkenny, Limerick and Waterford, which might fall within the scope of the scheme. Each of the local authorities have now submitted proposals on the areas which they believe should be included. Further discussions will be held in due course. Following changes introduced in this year’s Finance Bill, the residential element of the scheme will apply to all pre-1915 dwellings in the designated areas.

“My officials have also been in contact with the EU Commission on the application for State Aid approval for the Initiative and this process is expected to be concluded shortly. I will not be announcing the areas to be designated until this approval has been received and the initiative is to be commenced. I would expect that I will be in a position to make an announcement in the near future, in conjunction with my cabinet colleagues and the local authorities concerned. It is important to note that I do not see this as a wide-spread initiative, as it is targeted at those areas which are most in need of attention.”

The initiative will include tax incentives for refurbishment works to be carried out on residential and retail buildings in Galway. The works will be either to “bring them up to a habitable standard or even to make improvements to buildings which are currently inhabited,” a report on the Living City Initiative says.

The incentives will be targeted at owner/occupiers rather than property developers and the cost of the major refurbishments will be reimbursed.

For more on this story, see this week’s Galway City Tribune