Up to 40 per cent of Dublin’s housing targets could be met by reusing vacant commercial buildings and flats above shops for homes, according to a report commissioned by Dublin City Council.
Dublin’s climate action targets will not be met if housing and commercial buildings are continually demolished rather than reused, says the report from environmental researchers at the Centre for Public Impact and TransCap Initiative.
However, it found that the cost of refurbishing the city’s empty building stock is high, with up to €2.86 billion required to bring vacant property back into use.
The council in 2022 set up an “adaptive reuse” unit, to combat dereliction and provide homes through the reuse of vacant properties. Feasibility studies were prepared for 15 conversion projects and the first three properties were bought at a total cost of €6.35 million. However, the scheme has been radically curtailed, and just one project is proceeding: the adaptation of an office block at Fitzwilliam Quay in Ringsend.
Up to 16,000 homes could be created from vacant commercial and above-the-shop space. “This would present an important contribution to [the council’s] target of creating 40,000 new homes between 2022 and 2028,” the report says.
The Funding Architecture for the Circular Economy report notes it will be “challenging to meet housing targets and climate targets simultaneously”.
Adaptive reuse offers a means to “accelerate housing delivery, reduce embodied carbon and address vacancy and dereliction”, it says.
“Our research identified the reuse of existing buildings as the most immediately viable, under-resourced, and impactful route to advance circularity and progress towards [the council’s] climate mitigation objectives through reducing embodied carbon.”
However, it says existing funding and financing arrangements are not aligned with these objectives. “Fragmented funding streams, restrictive eligibility criteria, and limited internal capacity within [the council] collectively inhibit project viability and delivery at scale.”
Funding for adaptive reuse was sourced through multiple national grant schemes, “each with its own eligibility rules, caps, timelines, and administrative burdens”. These schemes are often “poorly suited to the complexity of older buildings, mixed-use developments or Dublin’s higher construction costs”.
As a result, “many socially and environmentally valuable projects are financially unviable in practice”.
An analysis of renovation costs indicated a total estimated funding need of €2.14-€2.86 billion to bring vacant buildings across the city into use for homes, the report says.
“The funding need for adaptive reuse is too significant to be covered by [the council’s] current funding mechanisms alone.”
The report recommends redirecting public funding toward “circular” or reuse initiatives (rather than demolition and rebuilding projects), reforming fragmented funding schemes and sourcing private and philanthropic capital to “design systemic funding mechanisms attuned to the complexity of the challenge”.
The issuing of “local climate bonds”, a type of community municipal investment, should also be considered.
Council chief executive Richard Shakespeare said the report presents “a credible route for Dublin City Council to lead on circular, low‑carbon urban regeneration – demonstrating how housing delivery, climate action and place‑making can reinforce one another when approached systemically.
“As we move forward regenerating the city centre, we will need to work together to ensure that the financial investment is there for not only the bricks and mortar but for the social and cultural assets that guarantee our shared pride in our city’s past, present and future.”
The conversion of vacant and derelict buildings into housing was one of the 10 recommendations of the Taoiseach’s Dublin City Taskforce report published in 2024. A council-owned company is to be established this year to lead city regeneration. Former secretary general of the Department of Health Robert Watt has been appointed to head to the new body.