Urban vacancy in Ireland: Addressing recent responses and opportunities

Abstract

This report outlines recent political and policy responses to urban vacancy in Ireland, the challenges that these policy objectives face, and lessons that can be drawn from the experience of those implemented them. It is the second policy output of the Irish Research Council-funded project Rethinking Urban Vacancy, led by Dr Cian O’Callaghan (Trinity College Dublin) in partnership with Dublin City Council’s Dublin Housing Observatory. Building upon our earlier policy report, which addressed the political measurements and responses to urban vacancy in Ireland, this report begins by contextualising urban vacancy in two ways – first, as a multifaceted and shifting feature of Ireland’s planning and development system and, second, as operating in context-specific ways. We elaborate on the latter by looking at the particularities of three Irish cities: Dublin, Cork, and Waterford. This report outlines the three types of challenges surrounding current responses to urban vacancy: planning and regulation, finance and markets, and governance. We highlight how these challenges have varying local impacts, and point to opportunities for actors looking to improve how they intervene in vacancy in Irish cities’ uneven property and development markets. The report concludes with three recommendations for improving current political responses to vacancy in Irish cities. Given the speed of policy change around vacancy, these recommendations complement on-going policy reforms and gaps in knowledge about urban vacancy at the time of writing. Overall, we look to describe what is being done to address vacancy in Irish cities and the experiences of those undertaking this work. We look to contribute to prevailing narratives around vacancy in Ireland by contextualising it as an outcome of urban development trends and processes, and argue that this should be the starting point for policies seeking to address vacancy. Our analysis is based on two primary research methods conducted between 2020-22. First, we carried out interviews and site visits with core stakeholders involved in planning, governance, and development of vacancy primarily in Dublin, Cork, and Waterford - including Local Authority staff, planners, and property developers. Second, our analysis draws more broadly upon media analysis and a review of academic literature, legislation and policies, and government documents.