Forced purchases ahead with 1,200 vacant Laois homes to be eyed up

As the housing crisis continues to hit Laois and elsewhere, new action is coming to reduce the number of houses left vacant and idle by their owners across the county.

Over 1,200 homes in Laois that are lying vacant are to be surveyed and their owners contacted, by Laois County Council.

Some of them will be forcibly bought up by the local authority, to meet with new Government targets to tackle the housing shortage.

Laois County Council now has a team of staff, the Vacant Homes Team, whose job is to survey the county and identify vacant houses in data supplied by GeoDirectory, a Department of Housing initiative.

First they will assess 647 properties within 1km of a town or village centre. A further 634 more, located more rurally will be surveyed "at a later date".

The status of the properties will be made available on a mobile App provided by the Department of Housing.

Laois County Council has been instructed to use its power to forcibly buy some of the the properties.

The council has been set a target by the Department of Housing to start proceeding of Compulsory Purchase orders on 60 houses this year.

These are vacant houses where engagement with the owner did not result in the house being brought back into use or put on the market.

"A target of 60 vacant and derelict properties to enter the programme and 16 CPOs to commence in 2023 has been set for Laois County Council. These targets can include vacant and derelict properties where engagement has already taken place and compulsory acquisitions commenced. Additionaol targets will be agreed on an annual basis for three years," Laois County Council states. 

Nationally, the CPO Activation Programme has set a target to start 4,000 CPOs on vacant houses, with 400 to be carried out this year, to be either used for social housing or put up for sale on the open market.

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It is one of a range of measures by Laois County Council to try and supply more housing. It aims to deliver 925 more social homes by 2026, well beyond the Government's target to Laois of 534.

Of those, 378 new homes should be ready by the end of 2023.

Most recent figures show that by April 30, there were 1,748 names of people and families on the waiting list for a social home in Laois. Almost half of them were getting a HAP payment towards the cost of their private rents.

This week, there are just six properties offered to rent in Laois on Daft.ie, with none in Portlaoise.