The Dublin Housing Observatory (DHO) is a new research unit, based in Dublin City Council and overseen by an independent advisory board. It is a new initiative in Dublin City Council’s ongoing development of its overall competencies in housing, planning, economic development, inclusion and integration. It currently comprises a staff team of three full-time professionals led by DCC senior management and reporting to the Deputy Chief Executive in Housing and Community Services.
The DHO strives to provide evidence which informs housing policy and leads to better practice. Our mission statement is “to make Dublin city an affordable and sustainable place to live by ensuring its housing and urban development strategy, policy and practice is underpinned by robust evidence.”
The Dublin Housing Observatory has four primary objectives. These are to:
- Enable and support Dublin City Council’s provision of high quality social and affordable homes and sustainable communities;
- Be a knowledge-exchange hub for policy design, analysis and implementation on housing and urban development;
- Provide research and analysis to support evidence-informed decision-making in housing and related fields of planning, economic development, inclusion and integration; and,
- Be a data navigator and objective source of information on the dynamics of Dublin’s housing system and market for all Dublin City Council’s stakeholders, the public and elected representatives.
To date the observatory has:
- launched a Mapping Viewer in collaboration with AIRO and OSi, which contains a wealth of housing related data, some of which not previously available to the public e.g. Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) data
- commissioned and published an independently authored report on the city’s Rapid Build Programme and the lived experience of residents’ in Dublin’s Rapid Built Housing
- conducted a study on vacant housing, the results of which were presented at the International Conference of Irish Geographers 2018 and used to inform a report for DCC’s Special Purpose Committee (SPC) on Housing
- supported the work of other DCC departments in for example reviewing the DCC Housing Strategy; policy and best practice guidance in urban renewal and regeneration; research support for area management in Dublin’s North East Inner City and development of an overall housing data management system
- organised several housing policy related events attended by national and international researchers, academics, practitioners and elected officials
From Left to Right; Mr Eoghan McCarthy (AIRO), Dr Daíthí Downey (DHO), Professor Ken Gibb (CaCHE), and Mr Colin Bray (OSi)
