Vacant property could address housing and climate issues

RTÉ News​

15-05-2025

Bringing vacant property back into use as homes could address the twin crises of housing and climate in Ireland, a conference has heard.
The Irish Green Building Council held its annual conference in the Mansion House in Dublin where Minister for Housing James Browne launched a new report aimed at charting Ireland's path to a circular built environment by 2040.
Construction and demolition generate 8.3 million tonnes of waste in Ireland each year and more than 87% of materials in the sector are made new, rather than reused or recycled.
The government has a target to deliver 303,000 new homes across Ireland between 2025 and 2030 with an average of over 50,000 homes per year targeted to be built here in Ireland between now and the end of the decade.
At the same time, the Government has also committed to a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
According to the 2022 census, there are 163,433 vacant residential units in Ireland.
Pat Barry, chief executive of the Irish Green Building Council, told RTÉ Morning Ireland that building sustainable housing could help to relieved some of the pressure on the country's constrained utility infrastructure.
"For example, if we can build homes that use 40% less water, then potentially we can build 40% more homes," Mr Barry said.
"So that's one way that we can increase capacity."
Mr Barry also said labour shortages could be addressed by increased use of modular builds where parts of a house are built on the one site and then delivered to the construction site.
This allows those workers consistency in their work in terms of location.
"The skills required aren't as much because we're able to mechanise and use technology to achieve very high levels of quality," he said.
"We can also then start to use locally grown materials such as Irish timber, agricrops such as hemp, straw, straw byproducts," he added.
Banbhna McCann, architect at Henry J Lyons, said homes are being designed for adaptability so that when people's requirements change into the future, the houses are easy to change.
"We're trying to find a way to address the quite radical shift in how we build," Ms McCann said.
In terms of ways to reduce construction waste, Ms McCann said constructing parts of homes in modular ways such as bathrooms and garages and then moving the finished room on site can reduce manufacturing waste.
Standard sizes also reduce waste.
"Specifying recycled materials where we can or reused materials, that can be quite challenging when you're building at scale with current standards and regulations and finding products that have the correct warranties," Ms McCann added.
Waterford City and County Council began looking at reintroducing vacant properties around ten years ago.
Paul Johnston, senior resident engineer at Waterford City Council, said the local authority has more than 1,400 united either delivered in or in progress of being delivered so far.
"The biggest project we've done would have been a 70-unit conversion of a former convent into an age friendly development," Mr Johnston said.
The council has successful used the Repair and Leasing Scheme to bring many buildings out of dereliction, by spreading the risk between the local authority, the Department of Housing and private owners.
"There's a lot of unknowns in these old buildings and by sharing the risk appropriately, you can de-risk the projects and it makes them more cost effective," Mr Johnston explained.
Alison Gilliland, member of Vacant to Vibrant building alliance and former chairperson of Dublin City Councils Strategic Policy Committee on Housing, said the council set up an adaptive reuse unit more than two years ago specifically to look at vacant properties.
So far, 30 buildings have been identified and just one has gotten to the design procurement stage.
"Dublin City Council, unfortunately at the moment have rowed back a little bit on what they're doing," Ms Gilliand said.
She said this is "very unfortunate because there's a potential there to deliver more housing, but also to address vacancy that the city centre really needs addressing and to bring a greater vibrancy to the centre ... and to address that urban decay."
"You don't need additional infrastructure if you're bringing back into use property that's in the middle of a town," she added.
"If you're living in the city centre, the likelihood is you're going to walk, you're going to cycle, you're going to use public transport, so you're not going to use that private car and those emissions.