'More ambition' needed to tackle Mayo housing shortage
Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage Darragh O'Brien TD officially opened Rehins Fort in Ballina last November. He is pictured with Minister Dara Calleary TD, Alan Dillion TD, Cllr Annie May Reape, Cllr Jarlath Munnelly, Cllr John O'Hara, Cllr Mark Duffy and Cllr Michael Loftus. Picture: John O'Grady
A Mayo councillor has called for "more ambition" in the delivery of social housing in the county.
Ballina-based Independent Cllr Mark Duffy was reacting to the news that just 12 houses and nine apartments were available to rent in three-quarters of Mayo last week.
The majority of the 61 available properties - 36 houses and 25 apartments - listed on the Daft.ie website last week are located in Castlebar, Westport and Achill with just 21 properties listed in North, South and East Mayo.
There was just one house and two apartments in Ballina and only six houses and two apartments in the wider North Mayo region, including Erris.
East Mayo had just seven advertised rental properties - an apartment and a house in Charlestown, two apartments and a house in Ballyhaunis and one apartment in both Foxford and Kiltimagh.
South Mayo had just five properties with four houses advertised in the Roundfort, Cong, Balla and Claremorris areas and one apartment in Balla.
Westport had seven houses and seven apartments, while there were 15 houses and 10 apartments in the Castlebar area.
The average monthly rent of the 36 houses advertised in Mayo was €1,446, a significant jump of 24% on the typical price in the county on the same website 10 months ago.
Cllr Duffy said urgent action was needed to tackle the shortage of housing - both to buy and to rent.
"We really need to be scaling up in terms of our ambition for housing and delivering concurrent projects," Cllr Duffy remarked. "We have most control over the social housing side and we need to support developers, support anyone in the private market and expedite planning for the delivery of housing."
Cllr Duffy said the Draft Local Area Plan for Ballina is now on public display and it is very important that it contains sufficient zoned land for housing.
"If the zoned land is not identified or in the right places then we could be zoning land where a developer or landowner could be a commercial owner and they will never build on it even though it would be the ideal place," he added.
The 50-unit Rehins Fort development in Ballina was opened last November and has helped to ease the town's social housing list.
Cllr Duffy said other projects, such as at the former Cheshire Home on the Killala Road and the Duffy's bakery site, are progressing.
"They are good projects, good locations and they will be welcomed as long as they are done right but the process needs to be expedited," he added.
Killala-based Fine Gael Cllr Jarlath Munnelly said he was not surprised by the latest figures on rental properties in Mayo. He said the rental market in the county has been impacted by the long waiting list for social housing, the already strained rental accommodation market and the ongoing pyrite problem.
