Councillors want more affordable homes in Athenry

THE lack of clarity on the tenure for a new housing development in Athenry forced an adjournment of the May meeting of Athenry MDC.

A planning application for construction of 28 homes at Raheen in Athenry, was presented to the council for approval at their recent meeting.

The 28 units comprising 18 three-bedroom semi-detached and ten, two bed-room semi-detached houses will be an extension of the existing Gort Mhaoilir housing estate in the area.

The development will incorporate 56 on-street parking spaces and 14 cycle parking spaces along with hard and soft landscaping.

The council planners revealed that the development is intended for affordable housing, but that the tenure could only be confirmed after the funding is secured from the Department of Housing.

Cllr Peter Feeney argued that the councillors were not informed about this before the meeting and that they were led to believe that the development would be affordable housing.

“When we passed the Part 8 application for social housing, we were assured that this would be affordable. It was the reason why the social houses were passed,” commented Cllr Feeney.

Director of Services at Athenry MDC, Liam Hanrahan clarified that the council is intending to seek funds for affordable housing, but they can’t go to the Department of Housing without having a planning permission in place from the local authority.

He also added that if the funding is not approved for affordable housing, the plans will be brought back to the council for approval to seek funding for social or cost rental housing.

Following an adjournment of the meeting for more than ten minutes, councillors approved the application with cost-rental housing being an alternative if funding cannot be secured for affordable housing tenure.