Dispute ensures OAP complex costing €17m still mostly empty

A €17 million senior citizens complex built last year in Dublin's north inner city remains largely empty due to an on-going dispute between Dublin City Council and the Catholic Housing Aid Society over rents and building costs.

Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly last night said he is "outraged" that three-quarters of the apartments in Fr Scully House are still vacant.

The complex of 99 apartments near Mountjoy Square was built using State funds, but despite being in negotiations since last July the society and the council have been unable to reach agreement about the level of rent which should be charged to tenants.

The issue came to a head last month when it appeared the building would be left empty for Christmas. Following the intervention of Mr Kelly, the society agreed to charge standard social housing rents to 23 elderly people who had been tenants of the original Fr Scully House, a 1960s flat complex demolished six years ago to make way for the new development.

However, the other 76 apartments in the new complex remain empty as the council and the society cannot reach an agreement on rents for elderly tenants on the council’s social housing waiting list.

Executive manager of the council’s housing department Gerry Geraghty said there remained “quite a distance” between what the society wants to charge in rent and what the council considered acceptable.

“We asked the housing agency to intervene and to examine the costs submitted. They came back with rents much more acceptable in the scheme of things.”

The society is seeking average monthly rent of €580, the housing agency recommended rents of €340-€345 with a service charge which would bring the payment per apartment to about €400 per month, said Mr Geraghty. The council has accepted this rent, but the society has not. There were also several disputed amounts related to the construction contract, he said.

A spokesman for the society said it had been left short €216,000 on the development of the complex, largely due to a bill for traffic management during the construction phase that it had paid to the council, but for which it had yet to be reimbursed by the Department of the Environment.

“The disputed costs are primarily bureaucratic in nature,” said the spokesman, but needed to be resolved before the complex was fully occupied.

‘Welfare attendant’

In relation to the rents issue, he said the rents proposed by the Housing Agency did not take into account the fact the apartments were fully furnished and that the society wanted to employ a "welfare attendant" who would be there at night and at weekends for tenants. These remained "issues of contention" he said. But he added that the society was continuing with the process of selecting potential new tenants for the development, although it was not yet in a position to make offers of accommodation.

Chief executive of the society Jim O’Sullivan would be writing to councillors and TDs representing the area, and other relevant stakeholders, on Tuesday to update them on developments, said the spokesman.

A spokesman for the department said Mr Kelly was incensed that the complex remained largely empty.

“The Minister wants to see this matter resolved immediately. He is outraged that this State-funded complex is not in full use and he wants to see it tenanted as a matter of urgency.”

The spokesman said there was “no hold up” in the department in relation to payments for traffic management bills. “The final account has not been received by the department.”

Local Sinn Féin Cllr Janice Boylan said the delay in resolving the rent issue was causing " great distress" to potential tenants.