Following an extensive campaign to get Waterford residents to complete an affordable housing survey, Waterford Council management confirmed that they received just under 400 respondents.
The survey was designed to assess the need for housing in the City and County and allow the Council to direct their resources towards areas of greatest demand.
Director of Services for Housing, Seamus De Faoite, outlined the efforts the Council made to promote the survey to the Plenary meeting in December. “We put a survey together, we put 34 questions out there in relation to people’s interests on the affordable purchase scheme, the cost rental scheme, and the rent to build scheme”.
“We did a video, nearly 7,000 people watched it, we went out to the hospitals the UHW’s the UPMC primary care centres, the schools, the teachers, the libraries, the businesses, banks, community groups, national and local government, the GAA, the FAI, our own staff…the local media, social medias, radio stations, we pulled out all the stops,” he said.
“The figures speak for themselves. Just under 400 people came back to us.”
Mr. De Faoite went on to outline the results of the survey, despite the limited number of respondents.
“In relation to those 400 people that came back to us, 48%, just under half, fell under the income of €60,000 or less. To go off and look for a mortgage, even with affordable equity, the reality is that those people are going to struggle,” Mr. De Faoite said.
“What a person perceived to be an affordable house: 66% said less than €250,000.
“What I’m taking [from the survey], more than anything else, is that a person out there whose income is too high to be on a social housing list, but is always going to struggle when it comes to get a mortgage.”
Mr. De Faoite then highlighted that it was the Cost Rental scheme that seemed to be best placed to address those below the mortgage threshold. Cost Rental schemes offer long term rent at least 25% below the market price.
Tuath Housing opened applications for 49 brand-new cost rental homes at the Mountneil development in Waterford City, in October 2024. This was the first-ever delivery of cost rental housing by an Approved Housing Body in Co. Waterford.
In response to the executive’s suggestion for those in the “squeezed middle” of Irish society who cannot afford a mortgage but do not qualify for social housing, Fianna Fáil Cllr. Eamon Quinlan suggested a way to make the scheme attractive to those who will not give up on the dream of owning their own home.
“We’ve done a few of those schemes where people rent long term. However, people of my generation, are loath to give up on the dream of owning their own home,” Cllr. Quinlan said.
“We might be able to give them okay rents, renting somewhere for 10, 15, 20 years, but the majority wont concede and give up on homeownership to go into long term rental. Most will stay trying to save up while living with their parents and it will be years before they really give up on that dream.
“I think what would be the silver bullet to unlock that cohort to have confidence in the cost rental housing, would be if we added at the end after 20 years of paying their rent, keeping their house well, law abiding citizens, that they would become eligible for the tenant purchase scheme,” suggested Cllr. Quinlan.
“After 20 years of living in this house, paying rent, they could then choose if they wish to purchase that house at a 50% discount, like we offer social housing tenants.
“I think that middle cohort would be banging down our door to get into the Cost Rental housing.
“If they had 20 years of stabilised rents, and they knew they had the option of turning that house into their multi-generational family home at the end.
I think that’s a way you would really create a brighter future for that cohort,” Cllr. Quinlan added.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting scheme.
Aaron Kent
