Brian Stanley urges fast-track for derelict hotel, cites 25% savings

And just to welcome the guests, and especially to welcome Mr Nicola Lawler, formerly of Leish County Council. Good to see you again, Nicola. And you were in the housing department in Leish for a good few years, and you were good to work with. Could I just ask, just specifically, just Longford, Paddy Blair, I suppose, would be the best one to answer this. You know, it's impressive, you know, that you've gone from 7% down to 2.4%. I read the papers, Paddy, that you supplied. I know that it divides the cost, and you have a problem now in your balance sheet of about 8 or 9 million, where, you know, you're providing roughly about 80% of the cost, and that is a balance sheet problem. So, obviously, there's, you know, that has to change. In relation to, I also noticed that you're using in-house maintenance crews and repair crews. In a word, has that, what saving is on that? Because one of the things that I found, and Nicola would have seen this in Leish, was that, well, before, they have in-house now as well. And I'm told that they're finding it cheaper, and they're finding it quicker, and they also have control over repairs. As a contractor, you do need them for specialised work sometimes. But where you can use it in-house, you can put your hand on them and say, we want this house repaired because there's a reason why we want to get back into use in a week or two's time. How much cheaper is it working out, Paddy? Just in a word. Deputy Stanley, thanks for your question. I'll pass over to Samantha in a minute, but we've also reduced our number of weeks within which a house is vacant. It's still a high number, but we've reduced by 25% over the last couple of years because we've introduced a number of additional measures that I'll ask Samantha to go through now, including the issue you're talking about, our own crews. Okay. Just in a figure, that's all I want, because I have a few questions. We only made the change half around April this year, so I wouldn't have a complete year's worth of data on it. But we are finding it that it's cheaper and quicker. 20-30%? Yeah, maybe around 25%. And obviously more efficient because you can get it done when you want it. Definitely. So direct labour is working for you. That's what I want to establish. How long has it taken, in your experience, for CPOs to be approved by on-board Planala? Or Carlo? One or the other. At this stage, none of the CPOs actually have been challenged through on-board Planala. What's the average, Paddy, or John, if you can tell me? I'd say we would have no experience with that because none of our CPOs have been challenged. They ultimately just get approval by the property owner. I might ask Mr. or your sister. Yeah, so we would have had a few challenges through the Commission Planala. We've had approvals, we've had refusals, and we've had oral hearings. If I was to put an average on it, I'd say approximately four months. Four months, okay. It's just a 10-figure, yeah. Okay. And could I ask you, just in relation to the department officials, and Nicola, you might be able to help me with this. The County Hotel in Port Leish, you'll recall this one. It was a derelict site for 30 years. Leish County Council then, CPO did, I think, and an AHB was going to develop it and put 11 apartments in it. They were going to do it within the existing building, which I always thought was daft, right? Because it just didn't lend itself to trying to work 11 apartments into it. Demolition was my own opinion about it, but I'm not, I'm a layperson. So the AHB has now pulled out, and it's back to the Council, and it looks like a demolition, right? And I would just say to Paul Owen and the officials in the department, it'll come in for approval if it's not already in, right? And I'd be talking to the County Manager this week about it, the Chief Executive. It does need to be fast-tracked. You know, it's derelict two years, sorry, it's derelict 30 years. It's two years now since the AHB pulled out. It's now back with the Council, and it just needs to be fast-tracked. I think if I'm correct in saying it's 2019, Nicola, and so it's six years that has been wasted on top of the period that is derelict. So I just want to raise that point and use the opportunity here to gain that local issue, because we need those single units in Port Leash and in Leash for single people and smaller families. And could I just ask a question in relation to both of the Councils may address this. Some of this thing about over the shops, it's basically you're trying to renovate a pile of dust, right? There are streets that are just, you know, you can see them, they don't lend themselves, and one of the earlier witnesses have said this, to, you know, there's difficulties with trying to repurpose them as units. There's soundproofing problems, there's fire safety problems, there's energy rating problems, and a lot of them have half an acre and an acre of a back garden. And it would make more sense, you know, to actually level them, if they're CPO, to level them and put in a small street and build six or seven or eight small units there, be it private or be it social. Just maybe the chief executive of the blog for my answer, and just somebody from Carlow, which everybody wants to go first. Yeah, I'll go first. I think a good example, and yet again our submission, is the Dublin Street, Cox's Lane. So two old three-storey shops with residential, two-storeys residential above. We purchased both units. We turned the two old shops into six one-bed units for single people. And in the back garden, as you talk about it, or the yard at the back, we've built six two-bed terraced houses. And there's good pictures and examples of how we did that. But, so it can be done, I think the point with regard to it is, it's complex. Like, it's a project like that. Like, even the hotel, I'm sitting here thinking, God, that's not me having to do something with that hotel. Because, you know, you're not starting from scratch. You're starting with something that's imperfect, and then you're trying to bring it back to a standard, and then bring it back to an A-rated or an A-2 rated. We were lucky in our project, we got it to an A-2. But the cost per unit of these would have been astronomical. I can tell you, this will be cheaper to level. And use the masonry for roll-bidding. Yeah, well, we were lucky in that we were new building the back garden. So I think our average cost per unit is about $274,000. And just look for it, I know you've dealt with a lot of dereliction. You just might give an answer on that. Yeah, yeah, Deputy. We've acquired a number of properties in the towns around the county, and the solutions are all going to be, you know, particular to their areas. But the suggestions that you're making make sense in a lot of cases. Have you done that in any case where you levelled and put in the street? Not yet, but it's definitely an option in Ballyman. It's an option in Granite. It's an option in Longford Town. We haven't actually got to the stage. We've acquired a number of properties, as I said, sometimes at our own resources, sometimes through the URDF round three call. And in some cases, the URDF is really about acquiring the property and turning it around. But properties we acquire for ourselves, we acquire with a view of maybe developing housing, maybe developing backland car parking, and maybe demolishing the street front and replacing it with something similar and something authentic to get the best possible use of the land that's there and bring back more activity, whether it's a residential or commercial or a mix of both into our town centres. You get better quality out. Oh, yeah, there's no doubt. Better than you. Thanks, Tyler.