Fingal’s approach to delivering homes and renewing communities

As you drive west out of Swords on the R125 towards Ashbourne there used be a small depot which was previously used by Fingal County Council’s Operations Department and the Civil Defence.

Today, there is no trace of its former existence because the buildings and yard that once stood here have been replaced by 11 new age-friendly apartments in a development now known as Bowden Court.

In the centre of Swords – beside Swords Castle and County Hall – two large cranes dominate the skyline. They are on the site of the new €40 million Culture House that Fingal County Council is building as part of the Swords Cultural Quarter which will, when it opens in 2027, house a library, theatre, gallery and arts spaces.

But the Council’s contractors Duggan Brothers are also working on the other side of the street, as a key component of the overall construction here includes the delivery of Seatown Place, a development of 36 apartments for Fingal County Council, replacing the 12 houses that previously stood on the site.

Around the corner on North Street, across the road from the local credit union, and next door to Fingal Community College, there are two vacant, semi-detached 19th century dwellings situated on a 0.3 acre site. The Council purchased the semi derelict buildings and underutilised brownfield site in 2020 and have planning permission for 13 homes with construction due to commence later this year.

Ten kilometres away near the coast in Portrane, the Council have also just completed the ambitious restoration of 14 vacant and derelict cottages on Portrane Avenue. The properties which once housed staff in the nearby St Ita’s Psychiatric Hospital, were provided to Fingal County Council by the HSE, and have been transformed into bright liveable homes. Located in an architectural conservation area, the properties have been conserved in line with how they were originally built, with great effort made to recreate the sash windows, preserve and reinstate old roof tiles and source matching tiles and slates. The houses have also been brought up to modern standards with each house replumbed, rewired and upgraded with modern heating systems and insulation.

These four projects alone will help take 75 families off the housing list and into housing located in already established communities with the social infrastructure already in place. They are tangible evidence that the ambitions of Fingal’s Vacant Homes Action Plan are being realised and it is helping to increase the availability of housing options in a county where demand is extremely high for different types and tenure of housing.

“We have shown how a site or a property can be transformed, and we can do a lot more if we continue to get the necessary funding support.”

Councillor Brian McDonagh, Mayor of Fingal

Fingal has taken a targeted approach to identifying vacant housing units with the intention of bringing these properties back into use for both private and social housing. It is also keen to promote town and village centre development as a positive town and village centre environment can help reduce dereliction and vacancy and there is strong cooperation between the Council’s Vacant Homes Officer and the Town Centre Regeneration Officer.

Between 2019 and 2021 the Council brought 70 vacant properties back into use using schemes such as Repair and Lease, Buy and Renew and Compulsory Purchase Orders as well as direct engagement with owners and banks.

A detailed survey dataset – provided by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in 2023 – led to the identification of over 650 potentially vacant private residential units across Fingal. Following on-site surveys in the same year by the Council’s Vacant Homes Team, 284 of these properties were confirmed as vacant. The Vacant Homes Team initiated contact with these property owners and is presently engaging with a large number of these property owners, with a view to bringing them back into occupancy.

One of the pillars of Fingal’s Vacant Homes Action Plan is the Croí Cónaithe Vacant Homes Refurbishment Grant Scheme which was launched in July 2022 and then extended in May 2023 to allow for properties built pre-2008 to qualify and to increase the grants to €50,000 for vacant properties and €70,000 for those that are vacant and derelict. The expansion of the scheme also allows for properties to be rented on the private rented market rather than being the applicant’s principal private residence and the changes have definitely increased interest.

Alongside construction of the new Culture House in the heart of Swords, 36 new homes will be delivered at Seatown Place.

Since the launch of the scheme, Fingal have received around 200 applications, three-quarters of which have been approved and will result in some €7.5 million in funding going towards the refurbishments.

Fingal County Council’s Director of Housing and Community Development, Paul Carroll, is happy that tangible results are being seen from the Vacant Homes Action Plan.

“It is great to be able to develop our own sites and create new family homes, such as at the old depot site in Swords. Similarly, identifying vacant properties and derelict sites across the county and working with the owners to either repair or develop those properties can be a challenging process, but the results speak for themselves, with over 150 vacant properties being brought back into residential use through initiatives like the Croí Cónaithe vacant property grant,” says Carroll.

The Mayor of Fingal, Councillor Brian McDonagh, added: “The Council have led by example when it comes to vacancy and dereliction by taking our own properties and sites and developing so that we are increasing our housing stock and moving people off the housing list. We have shown how a site or a property can be transformed, and we can do a lot more if we continue to get the necessary funding support from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.”

By repurposing derelict and vacant properties directly and assisting property owners do so themselves, Fingal is not only expanding the availability of affordable and social housing, but also assisting the revitalising of neighbourhoods and the creation of vibrant communities which is very much in keeping with the Government’s Housing for All strategy and the objective of addressing vacancy and efficiently using the existing housing stock.

W: www.fingal.ie