The article above details a lot of the government’s interventions a concludes that we’d be better off scrapping them and putting all the resources into the state directly building houses.
Government paid over 440K for modular homes.
Im not sure how much value for money the government procurement dept would be able to achieve if it set down that course. They recently relaxed criteria to build one off housing. Some planning authorities were scathing of this. It might help release some of the pressures if a son or daughter can build on a site owned by a parent.
Allowing more one off homes is bad for the overall picture. It’s inefficient for local authorities and public services and you want those builders working on planned developments and multiple units rather than on one single home. But politically it’s harder for the government to restrict people from building on their own property when there’s no other options for them to purchase.
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when they say the state building their own, I’m assuming they mean that they just control the design and tender process for a housing project that they own. These types of projects take forever, the amount of paperwork and red tape along the way, approvals at each stage and then approval for financing within their own department. Plus their capacity to be able to do it. It just takes so much longer. to be honest, I think they would be better placed putting their effort and finances into working on their existing owned properties which are vacant, as these are most likely in urban centres rather than a suburban estate. It means they can bring those who need housing into a town centre with better public transport access and able to walk to shops etc. A private developer will do far more housing quicker than the county councils ever will. And not just with Part V requirements, but there are opportunities for councils to purchase large blocks of apartments/housing in developer estates that cost pretty much the same had they gone about the building process themselves.
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Yeah I assume that’s what they mean alright. I don’t see why it should take so long or longer. Councils did this before they can be empowered to do it again. Agree in principle on vacant/derelict buildings but it often seems to cost so much as to be prohibitive.
We hear that a private developer will do far more housing quicker than a council will but i’m unconvinced. If council have lands to be developed - and they do - surely it’s best for them to do that themselves?
I would imagine the reason for the relaxation is because the LAs and government have completely failed in providing the necessary infrastructure to the towns and villages where they wanted these people to live / build.
I know locally no new houses were allowed to be built inside the town boundaries for the last 7 years because the waste water infrastructure can’t cope. A system that had issues for over 20 years.
They’ve finally announced they are starting the process to upgrade the treatment plant but it will be at least 2029 before it’s ready.
I would hazard that similar scenarios are being replicated across the country.
its to do with financing as much as anything, but also time. If a developer wants to build a load of houses, he goes looking for financing/partners etc, gets a design team, gets approval, gets planning and builds. If a council want to build something, there are multiple approval stages by higher authorities before they can proceed through each stage. So stage 1 is basic design and budget. Whilst the council themselves and the design team may work through this quickly, getting the housing body approval could take months and it just sits there doing nothing. Once approval is through, there is a stage 2, which is more detailed and approval at this point gives grant to seek planning permission. Then stage 3 which is essentially pre tender. Then it has to go through the etenders process as it is a publicly funded project, so this also takes time. A developer doesnt have to do any of this stuff. To give you an example, a fairly small project I’m on had a design team appointed in mid 2023. Its on site this week. To give some comparison, another developer lead project appointed a design team in mid 2022, at this point there are over 180 houses built on that site. It progresses much quick with developer lead works.
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Ever since the recession we’ve refused to invest in necessary infrastructure for the future. The greens were the only ones that wanted to do it. It’s a ridiculous disposition. This isn’t the local authorities or agencies fault by the way. They weren’t let/made to do anything.
I think the relaxation is a political fudge because you can’t restrict people from building themselves when they have no other option.
You’re not incorrect but there’s no reason those rules/timelines have to be that slow, lots of this can be sped up.
Also, if you’re talking about council owned land, and handing it over to a developer to build faster, there’s time taken up on the process to see it to the developer, right?
yeah not necessarily talking about council owned land here in general. Thats another issue that would need to be resolved alright. whilst you are right that there i no reason things go that slow, you are dealing with councils who do not have enough staff or expertise to be able to handle to volume of new properties and existing properties, and thats half the issue too.
Councils can do these things. They just need to be resourced and empowered to go and do them.
Development started near me recently enough. 40 houses approx. Half sold to council for some affordable housing scheme where purchasers have to fund 75% of the price through own mortgage
Builder broke ground in Oct and id say he has 30 of the houses up already with roofs on them and most of those are weatherproofed already with windows in etc. seriously efficient
Timber framed houses
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Given 3 of the 5 most read in the Irish Times is about the no planning permission eviction has me suspecting that the times reading yuppies (of which I aspire to be someday) may be up to their gills in properties, extensions, gazebos and granny flats with no planning permission.
Yeah this isn’t the case, quite clearly.
The Greens were fine but this is revisionism really. Ireland 2040 is the framework which predates them. The blocker was planning that they have little interest in streamlining.
1,200 homes were demolished in Limerick since the "regeneration " project was launched in 2007.
146 were built in their place.
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Social housing lists at an all time high.
Land for social housing completely empty
Careful now. Tim ll be on shortly with some contrarian view saying all rosey in the garden
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Maybe they exist but surely some sort of public/private partnership should be firing houses up on those sites? Surely that’s the whole point of the LDA ?
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