Income threshold for Mayo affordable homes is revealed
A five-home affordable housing development will be available in Westport.
People looking to secure one of just five homes in Mayo’s first affordable housing scheme will have to apply via an online portal.
A meeting of Mayo County Council’s Housing Strategic Policy Committee (SPC) heard how prospective homeowners will need a total income of between €65,000 and €75,000 to be able to purchase one of the properties in the Westport development.
Fine Gael Cllr Peter Flynn told the meeting that the homes will cost in the region of €230,000 to €259,000. He urged people from outside the Westport area to also apply for the scheme when it goes live.
Independent Cllr Michael Kilcoyne said Mayo County Council should also allow people to apply in writing instead of just online.
The meeting also heard that an application for a 60-home affordable housing scheme in Castlebar remains with the Department of Housing for approval. Planning permission has already been granted for a housing project on the Castlebar site.
The council's Director of Services for Housing Tom Gilligan said the local authority hopes that more developer-led projects will come on the stream, adding that the local authority is still doing a “lot of the heavy lifting” when it comes to the provision of housing.
Mr Gilligan said the council is reliant on just a handful of developers when projects go to procurement.
Cllr Flynn said he disagreed that the council is overstretched when it comes to building homes. He argued that previous town councils built a number of large-scale developments in the past and this needed to be done again by the county council.
