Home Sweet Home - Apollo House Takeover

[anon61878697]

Agreed.

[binkybarnes]

@Gman

But if 500 new homes are built, surely those people moving in for a lot of cases would be leaving either a rented accommodation or selling up thus putting other probably more affordable homes on the market. It wont solve 500 homeless families, but it wouldnt be a black and white case of they cant afford it so it would make zero difference. There would be a big knock on effect.

Fair point. But the land is a school playing field that is also used by local gaa and soccer clubs. Also the land has not been rezoned. There is no shortage of zoned land available for building homes on in Dublin. I don’t believe building on school playing fields is necessary when this is still the case

[Gman]

Yeah I wouldnt know the ins and outs of it at all to be honest, or if it viable or not. From the overhead photos, it does look fine, roads around, services nearby and not too densely populated within the surrounding boundaries. But the celebrating by TD’s or councillors that this was shut down whilst talking pout the other side of their mouth about hosing crisis is just ridiculous. If this was shot down, was there a counter proposal or an alternative so the developer had an opportunity for somewhere close by for example? As mentioned earlier, Ireland has a habit of crying out for services and provisions, but as long as they dont affect their surroundings.

[maroonandwhite]

They need to rebuild the ballymun flats. Plenty of land near ikea to get it done

[Juhniallio]

@tallback

Firstly - that wasn’t your issue with his idea initially. You’ve changed your tune.

Secondly, investors buying property to rent at low prices isn’t necessarily a problem - it may incentivise building further and particularly apartments. Ultimately supply is the issue at the moment - not who owns it.

I’d agree with you about best use of exchequer funds. However in an earlier post you suggested landlords should be “super-taxed” - considering most private landlords are on a marginal tax rate of 50% on rental income do you think this is too low. Do you realise that one of the biggest beneficiaries of rent increases is the state.

Finally, any comment on Aodhan “helping” the crisis by his vociferous support of the NIMBY brigade?

Apologies for the delay @tallback. Firstly, that is exactly part of my issue. We have too many people ‘investing’ in property. I think property investment should be heavily regulated and discouraged as a handy way of making money. By all means invest your cash. But housing should not be an easy option for this purpose.

2. Investors buying property to rent is a problem. Last year, a quarter of the buyers in Ireland were cash buyers apparently. That’s way over the odds of a normal housing market. It drives up prices for normal housebuyers at a critical time. @gilgamboa’s intervention, while having some merit for our immediate needs, woujld move us even further into the mire of market driven policy. And that is only going one way. Higher rents/house prices and more supplemented rents/direct payments from state to landlords and ultimately away from what the state should be spending it’s whopper housing budget on.

3. No private landlord pays 50% tax. There are many things that are used as write offs against this. However, it is still a fair whack of tax . I get this. Why not introduce a rent cap scheme where rents were capped at a percentage of the estimated value of the house? That way everyone gets a fair deal on their property.

4. Aodhan is far far too fond of twitter for my liking and is often first man in with the megaphone. I don’t like it at all. I would disagree with him on the St Annes thing but that’s his opinion. It’s a section up near St Pauls that many folk don’t even know about. I believe it was rushed through though and many local residents got their backs up because of this. A politician (however idealistic he may be) doing politics in his own back yard should not be a surprise.

[binkybarnes]

@Gman

Yeah I wouldnt know the ins and outs of it at all to be honest, or if it viable or not. From the overhead photos, it does look fine, roads around, services nearby and not too densely populated within the surrounding boundaries. But the celebrating by TD’s or councillors that this was shut down whilst talking pout the other side of their mouth about hosing crisis is just ridiculous. If this was shot down, was there a counter proposal or an alternative so the developer had an opportunity for somewhere close by for example? As mentioned earlier, Ireland has a habit of crying out for services and provisions, but as long as they dont affect their surroundings.

I agree on the hypocrisy of politicians and Aodhan is a bag of shite but I think the right decision has been made here

[Mac]

@anon61878697

Sad fact is that there is a culture of this carry on in the country - everyone on here probably knows stories of people cheating the system. I heard one the other day where a couple, both self employed, him a sparky and her a hairdresser, got some kind of affordable/social housing — how the fuck does that happen? cash in hands and cooking the books? Both are busying enough .

I never had you down for a sparky

[anon61878697]

And princess isn’t a hairdresser…

[Tim_Riggins]

My understanding was that St Paul’s were to retain two fields for themselves under the deal?

Clonkeen College were due to lose their pitches but the legal battle ended up with them keeping one.

I’m on the fence with it. In both cases there are other huge green field sites right beside the school. Schools sitting on huge land banks which are really only utilized for sports is not an efficient use of land. They At the same time, I’m also against the sale of school assets to fund kiddy fiddling cases, even if somewhat understandable financially from Orders POVs.

The local objection seems to be more about demanding more green space. There is already a lot there. Using the space better for public amenities would be a better idea.

I imagine plenty just do not want more traffic.

[Fagan_ODowd]

@Tim_Riggins

My understanding was that St Paul’s were to retain two fields for themselves under the deal?

Clonkeen College were due to lose their pitches but the legal battle ended up with them keeping one.

I’m on the fence with it. In both cases there are other huge green field sites right beside the school. Schools sitting on huge land banks which are really only utilized for sports is not an efficient use of land. They At the same time, I’m also against the sale of school assets to fund kiddy fiddling cases, even if somewhat understandable financially from Orders POVs.

The local objection seems to be more about demanding more green space. There is already a lot there. Using the space better for public amenities would be a better idea.

I imagine plenty just do not want more traffic.

The site is on six bus routes and is 200 yards from a dart stop. You couldn’t get a site better serviced for public transport.

[gilgamboa]

@tallback

These issues would apply to all political parties and I’ve yet to hear a credible plan from the opposition. It’s easy to criticise - not so easy to solve. If the gov had started building houses in 2011 and increased taxes or reduced services to do it they would have been hounded by the opposition. I don’t recall a post on here or many national commentators calling for house-building. Yet thats the root of the problem.

Tom Parlon was probably the only member of political classes roaring for houses to be built and he was shouting for v different reasons

[PhattPike]

Telling even that the solution is always “build more houses.”

Great post by @tallback btw.

[tallback]

Ironically we both need prices to increase and prices to stabilise. We need prices to increase to give a return to developers above the cost of construction and therefore incentivise effort to build supply, the key answer to all the problems. In addition reinflating prices helped restore a lot of balance sheets, both personal and corporate, which was badly needed. On the other hand we need prices to stabilise to make them accessible. Catch 22

Similarily we need investors into property both to put capital into the sector and also to ensure adequate rental supply to moderate rental prices. However too many investors and they’re competing for properties with people searching for a home. Catch 22.

[maroonandwhite]

Im clueless about all this, but is there anything the government can do to lower the cost of building, incentivising builders to build more while keeping the market price stable

[anon61878697]

+1 … but it’s great to see guys who do know about this stuff actually offer an opinion and not hide behind cheap jibes and smiley faces like certain other guys - the type of lads who fiddled in the vault when the country was going up in smoke.

[Enrique]

Or in other words, nimby.

[anon61878697]

you’d almost be tempted to read the newspapers to keep up to date with all this shite.

[tallback]

Some but All bring controversy. Big cost is the site - obviously the state has land but it’s not limitless and should it be “given away” at below market value to either developers or a select group of citizens via cheaper housing?

Finance costs is a decent portion of costs but the state getting involved here opens up all sort of risk.

Materials they have limited ability to affect.

Labour is affected by the general pressure on wages (ironically some of which is from the high housing cost) but more particularly if there’s lots of demand for skilled builders/trades etc then they’re going to charge more.

So all in All I’m not sure they can make a big impact unless they make politically divisive decisions

[maroonandwhite]

I suppose giving them some affordable or cut price land is the best option. With the proviso that they meet targets though, otherwise the common practice some undertake of doubling costs while halving output when recieving state contracts rears its head

[Tim_Riggins]

That’s what i thought. The green space on google maps is clearly substantial.

Disgraceful by the local politicians.