Agenda item

The Chief Executive outlined the background to the Agreement on the resolution of ‘Priory Hall’. He explained that in line with this Agreement, which was widely welcomed by all parties at the time, the City Council is contractually obliged to dispose of units in Priory Hall which have come into its ownership and to apply the proceeds as provided for in the Agreement. A key principle underlying the Agreement was an acceptance by all parties at the time that the tenure profile in Priory Hall would not be changed. He warned the Elected Members that the Council cannot unilaterally amend the terms of the Agreement and that any attempt to do so will almost certainly lead to the Agreement unravelling which in turn would expose the Council to considerable costs. While he was happy to approach the other parties to see if they would be amenable to a higher social housing share in New Priory he could not guarantee that any such approach would be successful.

Amendment No 1 in the names of Councillors Michael O’Brien and Eilis Ryan was put to a roll call vote and defeated – for full text and vote on this amendment, see Appendix B to these Minutes

         Amendment No 2 in the names of Councillors John Lyons, Andrew Keegan, Tina MacVeigh and Hazel De Nortuin was put to a roll call vote and defeated  – for full text and vote on this amendment, see Appendix C to these Minutes

         Amendment No 3 in the names of Councillors Alison Gilliland, Andrew Montague, Dermot Lacey, Jane Horgan-Jones, Rebecca Moynihan and Aine Clancy was put to a roll call vote (Appendix D) and agreed.

The text of the agreed amended report was as follows :

“That in light of the fact that subsequent to the agreement reached in October 2013 regarding the refurbishment and future sale of the apartments at Priory Hall a homelessness and accommodation crisis of unprecedented proportions has emerged that the text of the Assistant Chief Executive’s report be amended so as to delete lines 15 to 18 replace their text with the following:

•           Approval in principle is now being sought to seek to amend the agreement reached in October 2013 regarding the refurbishment and future sale of the apartments at Priory Hall so that:

1)         a)  Dublin City Council retains sufficient units so as to increase an overall DCC managed social housing level to 30% within the entire Priory Hall development, mirroring the level of social housing ratios agreed for the Oscar Traynor Lands.

b) Dublin City Council also retains sufficient units so as to provide an overall owner-occupier affordable housing level of 30% within the entire Priory Hall development to support those who meet the income criteria to be eligible for local authority house purchase loans

2)         That a request be made to the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government for the establishment by DCC of an appropriate Affordable Housing scheme for low income workers to allow the implementation of 1(b) above

•           And to amend the last paragraph, lines 19 - 22 to insert the text in below as follows:

The full details of all disposals and the terms and conditions of the Affordable Housing  Scheme will be presented for approval directly to the City Council in due course but agreement in principle is sought at this point as to make the request to the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government for DCC to establish an Affordable Housing Scheme and so the sales campaign for any outstanding units needs to be launched and the consent of the City Council is required prior to the completion of the sale of the units under Section 183 of the Local Government Act 2001. That all sales be to private individual”