# Social Housing and Ghost estates



## bluemac (26 Oct 2010)

[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]Lets get something good out of the doom and gloom,
any one living in a half finished housing development should be able to report this to a new body, lets write to the developer ask him for his plan to finish the estate even if that means getting rid of house's just grassing over where house's are.
Any developer who cannot do this should be in breach of his planning conditions. Let the government come in and take over, lets finish the houses and use them for social housing and for all our future generations this will never be an issue again we have the house's etc.

Why is this good?
gets out of work builders back working (we should use skilled people we have on welfare to do this, 2 days each a week give them a bonus payment as incentive to do this)
gets estates finished for residents at a low costs.
fixes the social housing problem within 1 year. 
Government get rental income from these house's

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## T McGibney (26 Oct 2010)

bluemac said:


> ...[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial] report this to a new body
> 
> [/FONT]



Yet another quango???!!!


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## bluemac (26 Oct 2010)

some one will have to run it...  you need a point of call..


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## truthseeker (26 Oct 2010)

bluemac said:


> .....[FONT=Verdana, Helvetica, Arial]to report this to a new body[/FONT]


 
We dont need a new body for this - use local authority.

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bluemac said:


> .....gets out of work builders back working (we should use skilled people we have on welfare to do this, 2 days each a week give them a bonus payment as incentive to do this)


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Why not just give them jobs to do it and sign off welfare?


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bluemac said:


> .....gets estates finished for residents at a low costs.


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I dont know how happy residents who paid inflated prices for homes are going to be at their estates being turned into social housing estates. Presumably they bought privately in the belief that their homes were in privately owned estates. It will devalue their properties further to turn the place into social housing.


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## shnaek (26 Oct 2010)

Why not give everyone in the land a free house?


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## pinkyBear (26 Oct 2010)

What I would worry about is that these ghost estates could then become problematic areas in the future, look at Ballymun and Finglas, poor resources and high density poverty has really hit these areas (among others) badly...
P..


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## truthseeker (26 Oct 2010)

Agree Pinkybear - poor infrastructure is also an issue, many ghost estates have no local shops, public transport, nearby schools etc...


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## Complainer (26 Oct 2010)

truthseeker said:


> I dont know how happy residents who paid inflated prices for homes are going to be at their estates being turned into social housing estates. Presumably they bought privately in the belief that their homes were in privately owned estates. It will devalue their properties further to turn the place into social housing.


They would be very foolish to look down their noses like this. Any tenant is better than no tenant. A derilict site will lose value far more quickly than any social housing site.


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## truthseeker (26 Oct 2010)

Complainer said:


> They would be very foolish to look down their noses like this. Any tenant is better than no tenant. A derilict site will lose value far more quickly than any social housing site.


 
I dont disagree, and in fact, a property in an unfinished (and never likely to be finished) estate is already devalued. But Im just pointing out an objection that may well be raised by existing residents - many of whom will be in a negative equity trap and will not be able to move elsewhere if they want to.

How would you or anyone feel if youd scrimped and saved a deposit and borrowed to buy privately and some time later the estate became a social housing estate and you couldnt sell up due to negative equity?


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## bluemac (26 Oct 2010)

its got to be better than leaving the estates as they are now?

in terms of future social problems yes this could happen it would be best to put a variety of tenants in them, if you give someone a good quality house in a good area, with good people living around them surly this helps with the social problems.. im sure that most people who need the housing are actually not bad people. 

Yes we could give them full time jobs and off welfare but the jobs would be short term and people may be reluctant to come on and off benefits.


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## truthseeker (26 Oct 2010)

What about those in existing social housing, dont you think they may start thinking 'hey, why cant I have a large new 3 bed semi with a big garden instead of a tiny old 3 bed terrace with a patch of grass out the back if other people in social housing can?'. There could be a lot of applications for transfer.


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## pinkyBear (26 Oct 2010)

There is also the concideration that many of these estates are outside of Dublin, and I would imagine that the biggest waiting list for Social Housing would be in Dublin, you cannot force people to move out of Dublin? 

Just because people may be on a waiting list for a Social House - does not mean they are unemployed!!


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## Howitzer (26 Oct 2010)

truthseeker said:


> We dont need a new body for this - use local authority.


I'd say you do. 

I, personally, no strings attached, could reduce the the Social Housing lists today by thousands. Well maybe not entirely today, but the amount of time it took to get in contact with everyone on those lists. Ask:

Are you still in the country?
Do you still need Social Housing?
Are you on the Social Housing list of any other Local Authority?

One of the many problems with Local Authority Housing in Ireland is that it's managed by the Local Authorities. A consolidated Local Authority Housing agency would immediately be self funding by simply eliminating the duplication of resources, but more importantly would reduce the lists by collating responses to the questions asked above.

One other point. All these people that we're going to move into these Ghost Estates, where do they currently live?


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## truthseeker (26 Oct 2010)

Howitzer said:


> All these people that we're going to move into these Ghost Estates, where do they currently live?


 
Some of them live with parents, with friends, with relations, or are renting privately while awaiting a placement on a social housing list.


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## belview (26 Oct 2010)

The people who currently live in these unfinished ghost estates should be the only ones who have a say in the type of solution used.


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## shnaek (26 Oct 2010)

bluemac said:


> if you give someone a good quality house in a good area, with good people living around them surly this helps with the social problems..



Does this actually work? I used to believe it was a great idea, but then I realised I had seen no evidence that it works and I was simply following a well meaning mantra. Has anyone got stats or studies based on reality in this regard?

Also, if fairness is to be considered, I can see how people who paid top dollar would be unhappy about other people getting houses for nothing right next door. I would think that most of these ghost estates are in areas in which there isn't a huge demand for houses, and therefore they will be knocked, like they were in the US.


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## Derry (27 Oct 2010)

Well in my home town the local authority purchased the remaining 50 homes of a private estate for use as social housing.  It was a nine days wonder alright but not a word now and all live in harmony.


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## Paddyman (13 Nov 2010)

In my experience, any tenant would not be better than an empty house.
  In the real world, you might end up with the neighbours from hell beside you - drug pushers or other scumbags. You are stuck because of negative equity with a falling house value due to the economy and the impact of your new neighbours.


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## Kev (13 Nov 2010)

At least you will the opportunity to complain to the council if they are noisy and get them moved out hopefully

Look up  the council policy on how their tenants should be towards their neighbours.  It may not be all bad....


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## Paddyman (13 Nov 2010)

In theory complaining to the council about bad neighbours is fine. Sadly, in practice, it is very difficult to get council officials moving on this issue.

I am aware of an estate where 97 out of 100 neighbours complained incessantly about a family. They petitioned the local council. Unfortunately no action was taken. Several families sold up and moved on - leading to ghettoization on one stretch.

Moving bad neighbours in will not resolve the problem of ghost estates and the financial problems of those unfortunate enough to be stuck in them. Perhaps these estates could be used for social and affordable housing with strict vetting of all applicants and contracts like those used by RESPOND.


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