Concern over cuts to number of family homes at new Limerick estate

NORTHSIDE councillor Olivia O’Sullivan has expressed concern at the number of two-bedroom houses planned in a new development - at the expense of family homes.

Riverpoint Construction, which has received permission to build hundreds of new homes at Pass Road near Caherdavin, has sought to alter one of the applications it had successfully approved in 2022.

This application paved the way for the construction of 98 homes, the majority being three-and-four bedroomed houses.

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Now the applicant is seeking the green light to change 18 of these from three-bedroomed homes to two-bed bungalows.

On top of this, they are hoping to change four of the homes from four-bedroomed accommodation to three-bedroomed accommodation.

There is also a bid to replace two blocks of three-bedroomed terraced homes to a mix of two-and-three bedded homes.

Council planners are scheduled to decide on the application later this week.

But Cllr O’Sullivan is concerned at the reduction in bedroom numbers in the development, and has formally objected to the application. “I have grave concerns about the emerging focus on two-bed properties in the Clonconane development,” she wrote.

“There has been a severe undersupply of family homes for sale in the wider Caherdavin/Ennis Road area, and a growing population, with many people who have been raised in this area keen to settle down here and buy their first home,” the Fine Gael councillor wrote.

“There are sufficient, if not already too many, two-bed and one-bed properties in this development,” Cllr O’Sullivan added.

She believes that bulk-buying of new developments by council and Approved Housing Bodies elsewhere on the northside have kept families off the housing ladder.