John Dolan: We must make it easier for folk like Cora to rejuvenate Cork city
Just another one of around 5,000 empty and usually shabby properties dotted around Cork city that depress all of those who live in or visit the place whenever we them by.
And this in the midst of a chronic housing shortage too.
Instead, No.42, Douglas Street is now an eye-catchingly beautiful home, a jewel in the crown of one of Cork’s most venerable city streets.
Artist Cora has transformed what was a tired and creaking old townhouse and shop into her own cosy and charming Victorian terrace home with a studio attached.
Her inspirational story featured in last Sunday’s episode of RTÉ series The Great House Revival, which followed the Cork woman’s journey as she sought to create a domestic silk purse from a sow’s ear - and all on a relative shoestring.
Any construction work is stressful for the owners, but Cora faced a plethora of problems, from unsalvageable windows to asbestos discoveries. The death of her beloved mother midway through the project added to the turmoil.
The Great House Revival is a fabulous series, fronted by the avuncular architect Hugh Wallace, and each property is usually visited over the course of many years to give us an insight into the obstacles and challenges faced by these people who want to breathe new life into old properties.
The first episode of the latest series followed a young family as they lovingly restored an old post office in Butlerstown in Cork, and tomorrow’s programme heads to a dilapidated country house in Rockhouse, between Innishannon and Ballinadee.
The obstacles each homeowner faces can vary from runaway budgets to woodworm, from wonky roofs to dodgy electrics.
One obstacle that Cora faced in last Sunday’s episode was striking - as it related to Cork city’s local authority.
She had applied for the new Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant to help fund her dream, but the TV show documented how this turned into an all-too familiar saga of ordinary people grappling frustratedly with red tape and faceless bureaucracy.
In a diary logging her renovation, which appeared in last week’s Irish Examiner, she said she was calling the council “constantly and emailing them every week”.
On the TV show, Cora explained that she applied for the grant in the November and the inspector finally came to her property in March. The approval then came in October.
She said of her with Cork City Council: “The line went dead. We were really stuck, we haven’t got a clue when we can start the work.”
Eventually, she was told she had approval for the Vacant Home Grant which, at €50,000, is €20,000 less than the €70,000 Derelict Home Grant.
Exasperated, she appealed, and a month later, she finally got approval for the full €70,000 derelict grant.
The programme explained that it took 11 months between application and approval, which is a staggeringly long time to be in limbo on a big project.
ittedly, Cora’s was the first application for the scheme, and the council may have had some teething problems with this new grant system - then again, they could hardly blame a backlog for the delay!
You cannot begin work on your property until you get approval for the grant, so you can imagine how those delays really impacted on Cora’s plans.
It just seems to me like an awful long time to wait when you’re trying to get your ducks in a row and turn an empty shell into an attractive home.
We should be bending over backwards to house these people as they transform ugly edifices into homes, sweet homes that inject life, vitality, and beauty into the city.
Another potential issue then arises for applicants of these grants in that you have just 13 months after approval to get the work completed - just the kind of ticking clock you don’t need for an often complicated renovation when you’re at the mercy of various contractors and tradespeople, as well as facing inevitable setbacks and delays.
The recipient then only receives the grant once the work is completed, which can mean a lot of financial juggling with the banks and loanees.
A year ago, the government said they were looking into an option of making these staged payments instead, to help the homeowners access the money quicker, but nothing has been heard about this idea since.
But, sometimes, it’s not enough for the government to put such plans in place - they need to ensure the resources are there for them to be implemented at the business end.
Cora’s experience certainly didn’t endear me to ever go down the grants route - even though the finished article was superb.
We should be doing everything we can to encourage and nurture the people tackling these big housing projects and making our cities a more attractive place.
Given the sometimes lengthy delays in gaining approval for these grants, it strikes me that either the council needs to streamline its processes, or the government needs to provide more resources for them to do so.
The scheme has been a great success so far, with more than 11,300 applications received nationwide and over 7,700 approved as of the end of December, 2024.
Some 400 applications are being received monthly, ed across all local authorities across the state
However, that time lag between application and approval was brought to light in figures provided for Cork last November.
These showed that almost 1,200 applications had been received by Cork’s two local authorities for vacant and derelict property refurbishment grants since the inception of the scheme in 2022, but only 82 grants had been paid out in that two-year period.
For more about the vacant and derelict home grants, see www.citizensinformation.ie
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