CITY TRIBUNE
Sort student accommodation for all – not just the rich elite
NUI Galway needs to build basic student accommodation that is affordable to all – instead of focusing on luxury complexes, where up to half of the places are taken by lucrative international students.
That’s according to Midlands Northwest MEP Chris MacManus, who said he had recently met with the NUIG Director of Internationalisation and Director of Global Galway, Dr Shazim Husayn – and the main issue that came up was the crisis in student accommodation.
This dire situation was only worsening all the time, which required swift action, he stressed.
“A new strategy is urgently required that puts affordability and public ownership at its heart. Better funding for our higher education facilities would allow them to build on-campus accommodation and offer more affordable rents,” he stated.
“The current government strategy is putting untold stress and expense on students and their families. Third level education should be a basic human right to any citizen. This government are squeezing out students through their failed policies. The unaffordability of accommodation is cultivating a new education elitism.
“There is an obvious over-reliance on the private sector and that approach is simply not working. That over reliance has delivered an inadequate amount of student accommodation at completely unaffordable rental prices.”
Four years ago, Fine Gael bring forward its National Student Accommodation Strategy, but the Sinn Féin MEP said that it had been a complete and utter failure.
His party’s spokesperson on Further and Higher Education Rose Conway-Walsh said the government claims it met its target of helping to create 7,000 additional student beds.
“This target was never capable of meeting the real student housing need. There are 24,000 students relying on the general private rental market that could not access student specific accommodation,” she said.
Under eight per cent of new student accommodation built since 2017 has been publicly owned, on-campus accommodation. This amounts to just 679 beds.
“On top of this, colleges increasingly give priority to fee-paying international students for on-campus accommodation in line with government policy. This has led to a situation where up to half of all on-campus student accommodation goes to the more lucrative international student,” said Ms Conway-Walsh.
NUIG Students’ Union vice president for education Clodagh McGivern said the accommodation crisis was the worst it has ever been this academic year following the creation of 4,600 new college places due to grade inflation as a result of the hybrid leaving cert.
Yet the college’s only response in many years has been to build the luxury Goldcrest Village with 429 ensuite bedrooms across 76 apartments where students must pay an average of €800 a month. It also has plans to build a third on-campus residential facility. The privately-owned Westwood complex charges in the region of €800 a month for single rooms.
“Students don’t care about gyms and cinema rooms. Right now in the middle of a crisis they need a roof over their head so they can get to college. Instead the only complexes being built are luxury ones where the fees are extortionate.
“Parents are so desperate they have no choice to pay these insane fees because of the dire market. At the beginning of the academic year, we had 200 students staying in hostels, we had some students sleeping in cars and campervans.
“We need student-purpose accommodation that is affordable, not luxury.”
The only other on-campus residence is Corrib Village that has 176 apartments accommodating 764 students.
There are eight privately-owned and managed student residences located off campus. These are Dúnáras, Gort na Coiribe, Menlo Park Apartments, Donegan Court, Atlantis Apartments, Swuite, Galway Central and recently developed Westwood complex, which is already running a waiting list for the next academic year before CAO offers are even made.
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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