27 refurbished housing units in Citywest will reduce waiting list

UP TO 27 refurbished housing units in Citywest were handed over to South Dublin County Council by investment fund RediResi Ireland.

Speaking about the project, John Hickie, Head of Finance for RediResi Ireland said: “We are delighted to see this project completed.  These homes were completely refurbished during the difficult Covid-19 pandemic.  We worked directly with SDCC in delivering these housing units and they will assist the council in reducing their housing waiting list.

“These units, when purchased were in a dilapidated and derelict state and RediResi’s team extensively refurbished them and made them safe to modern fire regulations and significantly upgraded the Building Energy Rating (BER) of each unit.

“Our expert team of in-house advisers work to resolve complex problems that can often exist with derelict second-hand homes. These issues can be structural, legal or be other problems that we work to resolve. This is so, when housing units are delivered for local authorities for the purposes of social housing provision those issues no longer exist and the home is of a far better standard and quality than previously existed.”

A legal dispute between RediResi and the council that left the social housing units vacant for nearly 18 months, was recently resolved.

Last week, the Business Post reported the Round Gardens complex beside the CityWest Hotel, was acquired by RediResi in December 2019 for €7.15 million.

The report said the local authority is in line to pay €483,593 per apartment over the term of the lease. RediResi purchased each home for roughly €220,000.