New housing scheme 'should be double in size'

A member of Mayo County Council has said a new 50-unit social housing development in Westport should be double the size.

Fine Gael Cllr Peter Flynn made his comments at a meeting of the council's housing strategic policy committee (SPC) when he called for housing densities to be increased on council sites. He said the recently opened scheme at the Golf Course Road in Westport could have had 100 houses on it. He added that councillors also originally wanted a 50/50 split of social and affordable housing on the site but this had not been allowed. 

“This development was originally an 8.5-acre location. It is a lovely estate, fantastic, but to see the amount of green space that ultimately we will be chased as councillors to maintain and also the fact it is mostly three-beds there is completely at variance with our housing needs and demand for one and two-beds.” 

Cllr Flynn also said it was wrong to put affordable housing in one block and social housing in another block and asked: “Why are we not building mixed tenure? How do we as a council start building for people earning €40,000 to €60,000 per annum, as opposed to what we are doing today, which is really an irresponsible exercise because what we are doing traditionally is not working.” 

Director of Services for Housing Tom Gilligan responded that the entire Part 8 planning process, which applies to local authority developments, was a matter for councillors to decide on. He added that there is “lots of consultation between management and the Department on developments”. He also advised Cllr Flynn that the council did not get any targets for affordable housing from members and that they (management) had gone out on a limb to get five of them added to the Golf Course Road project.

Cllr Flynn countered: “Back in 2018 the council said there were no issues with housing in Mayo and so we missed out on a whole tranche of funding then, so it is very hard to have targets when we tell the government we have no issues.” 

He added that he did not want to get into a row over the matter and welcomed the shift to delivering smaller housing units.

The Westport councillor also expressed disappointment that a council development ongoing in Louisburgh would only have three-bed units when an additional 20 units could have been added on.

The council's senior architect Simon Wall told Cllr Flynn: “In Westport we maxed out on the density at the time on that site (Golf Course Road). I know densities have changed since then.” 

Referring to the Louisburgh development, Mr Wall explained: “That is an accelerated case in that it has planning permission already for three-beds so we want to build it straight away and get it into the system. But we also have a lot of other sites where we are developing smaller units, one and two-beds, which is a new departure, but as you said, it is reflecting the new reality of families splitting up etc.”