T McGibney
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22 luxury apartments bought for €11m in Dublin 4 for social housing
- Thread starter Brendan Burgess
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Under the long term scheme the council do all maintenance on the property and it is returned to owner in condition handed over.
Just to add the apartment along with most apartments for sale could not be built for their sale prices.
The value of a council house to a tenant has increased massively as property prices have increase while the max rent for the council house has stayed at a fixed percentage of income.
I believe a lot of government programs, council housing or HAP etc are just rearranging the population into an existing housing supply that doesn't fit the population. Instead of personnel economic means dictating who lives where and who is squeezed into emergency accommodation or in most cases living with parents its done by need / venerability.
So if the government provides support to 100 people in most need via council house or HAP, at least 50 people will fall out of the economic ability to rent. However they may not meet the need / vunrability requirement.
Those 100 who are house don't sit just above the economic barrier to housing that many would be hoping for (basic house, high percentage of income on housing and noting fancy about the area) but in a far better position than most recent house buyers (low rent, house may be to a very high standard and area could be one of the most desirable in the country). They move way ahead of most recent house buyers.
I can certainly understand the approach to a degree. But for someone trying to buy who will never qualify it must be frustrating. There is a percentage out there who will always be doing too well for council housing but not make the cut to buy.
As for the location, I believe there is an unwritten social contract the people broadly agree with, housing those most in need, yes, in the most desirable locations that are probable only affordable to less than 5%. I am not sure.
I believe a lot of government programs, council housing or HAP etc are just rearranging the population into an existing housing supply that doesn't fit the population. Instead of personnel economic means dictating who lives where and who is squeezed into emergency accommodation or in most cases living with parents its done by need / venerability.
So if the government provides support to 100 people in most need via council house or HAP, at least 50 people will fall out of the economic ability to rent. However they may not meet the need / vunrability requirement.
Those 100 who are house don't sit just above the economic barrier to housing that many would be hoping for (basic house, high percentage of income on housing and noting fancy about the area) but in a far better position than most recent house buyers (low rent, house may be to a very high standard and area could be one of the most desirable in the country). They move way ahead of most recent house buyers.
I can certainly understand the approach to a degree. But for someone trying to buy who will never qualify it must be frustrating. There is a percentage out there who will always be doing too well for council housing but not make the cut to buy.
As for the location, I believe there is an unwritten social contract the people broadly agree with, housing those most in need, yes, in the most desirable locations that are probable only affordable to less than 5%. I am not sure.
Dr Strangelove
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It’s also a healthy de-risking exercise by the state.
In ten or 20 years social housing demand might be for a different type of property or a different location.
People of all ages and family types have social housing needs.
The idea that the state should build monoculture semi-Ds for families is prehistoric.
Agreed, it's been shown time and time again that the private sector can deliver them more cheaply.
S
SquirrelChaser
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That's inaccurate. The public sector doesn't build homes in this country and hasn't built for a long time. The private sector builds for the public sector one way or another. At best some parts of the public sector have professional staff who can form part of the design team, but it's far more usual that they write a specification which is used to tender for the design team.
It's been shown time and time again that the private sector extracts far higher prices from public sector contracts than from the equivalent private sector contracts. That's true of both housing and office- there's no way for example any contractor would have dared charge €440k for a glorified mobile home like they did for the OPW, because they'd never get another job again.
The real problem is that virtually none of the people "responsible" (quotation marks because it's blindingly obvious nobody is actually held responsible) for public works could manage the construction of an ikea wardrobe at a reasonable cost, never mind a residential or office development.
On the question of luxury apartments in D4 for social housing, I'm totally fine with that. (FWIW neither i nor any family member I'm aware of has ever benefited from social housing). Social housing benefits more it costs, and there's behavioral trends which suggests putting poor people in wealthy areas is probably the best use of social housing because the poor kids will have peers who expect to go to college, pay tax etc and people tend to conform. Ultimately the money comes back several times over to the taxpayer, it just takes a while. A residential property is a 100 year asset.
I also don't agree that there's any moral hazard to providing secure social housing. I think the maximum contribution is 16% of income, so you'll have to earn €75k a year to pay €12k annual rent in Dublin which would be an absolute bargain. It reduces the incentives attached to higher wages but that's true of every tax. You need to be truly bad at maths to think there's no financial benefit to earning €60k instead of €50k etc.
Selling social housing to tenants on the other hand is just stupid.
You get all these in any middle class area in Ireland.
The biggest differences I see between public and private projects is the private sector being in a position to cancel / stop a project when it doesn't make financial scene. I have done lots of cost estimates or prelim design for private sector projects that never advance because it didn't make financial sense to the developer. On a public project there is often a political commitment to a project early on and the object of the project is not financial gain.
The second is the number of parties the developer will try and keep happy is usually limited to those he is legally required to. Depending on the nature of the public project that list could be long. eg. the mix of unit types in a housing development will be based on the most profitable the developer can get planning for for private vs the public housing development taking the housing waiting list as a driver.
Dr Strangelove
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A big problem is the early leaking or announcement of public sector projects.
Makes it very hard for officials and politicians to pull out.
thedaddyman
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Fundamental reason, as per the Childrens Hospital fiasco, is that the Public Sector is, in general, incapable of writing a clear, decisive and comprehensive set of requirements for anything as anyone who has ever had to respond to such a tender will be aware of. Some of them (and not just in the construction sector) are so awful it beggars disbelief. I've seen one recently where the clarification question document was longer then the tender document itself.
There is also now an insistance on everything being "fixed price" in a very rigid manner. Hence anyone who submits a price for a Public Sector contract is adding a significant risk factor onto everything, and by significant, I mean 30%+ as a minimum,
S
SquirrelChaser
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Not all specs are bad in fairness, but most are.
There's two kinds of bad though. First is poor quality like you describe. Second is the "perfect" specification. As nothing is perfect this often results in zero compliant tenders for goods (the spec is so detailed that nothing meets all the requirements) and a fortune in change orders for works because the incredibly detailed spec is riddled with small errors- every single one of which is a change order and more cash. The example i was given 5 years ago by a guy working on the Childrens Hospital was that it cost the taxpayer €300 if the location of a light switch on the plans was changed....
There's no such thing in real life as a fixed price public works contract. Out of hundreds i only ever saw one single one that actually came in at the contract price. One.
For goods and service any competent contracting authority (of which there are regrettably few) will include a price variation clause linked to inflation (and there are plenty of indices from which to choose an appropriate one). But yeah, if you're signing a multi-year contract with no price variation clause clause you'd mad not to load it.
Must be said there's a number of public sector contracts which deliver real value for the taxpayer.
On the subject of cancelling contracts if the price is too high, that's not a viable option for a badly needed school, hospital, rail line etc. As a taxpayer I'm apalled at the cost of children's hospital, as a parent i don't give a damn as long as it gets built. Bike sheds on the other hand...
You'll note I didn't claim that they built themselves. That particular practice was eliminated long ago due to the private sector of the time being able to build for less.
I'm not. I don't care. It's an immensely complex one-off project. I'm appalled at the waste and mismanagement within the HSE and at all levels and categories of employment within the HSE.
I'm appalled that the State adds so much time and cost to the provision of housing by the Private Sector.
I'm appalled that the State buys existing private houses to use as social housing.
I don't agree at all that there is a societal requirement to house the most needy. If they can meet their own needs then they should get nothing. No house, no welfare, no clothing, no shelter. Nothing. I would literally let them starve. Those who are unable to meet their own needs should be helped. In their case there is a societal obligation.
Hines puts €64.5m price tag on apartment complex for sale to Dublin City Council
The Irish arm of international property company Hines has put an indicative price tag of €64.57m on 113 apartments and studios it is planning to sell for social housing to Dublin City Council.
m.independent.ie
€64.57m ÷ 113 =~ €570K.
I completely disagree with the Government's strategy of leaving construction of more homes to the private sector.
It's pure stupidity and complete laziness from our elected Goverment, to be allowing private entities profit at the cost of the tax payer.
We need to think about both the social benefit and the financial impact of providing housing...
The State has plenty of funds, so could easily invest, either directly or via a joint venture, to develop land that it currently owns and is not using and / or redevelop vacant buildings.
Once built, give people in need of housing a five year fixed term lease, on beneficial terms, but without automatic right to renew at the end of the 5-year term, with automatic eviction instead and sale of the vacant properties into the private market, thereafter.
That gives people 5-years to get themselves sorted out, and ready to return to the non-subsidised private residential market.
As for who will build the housing, simply advertise for trades people to come here, from other parts of the world, just like we've seen other counties do in times past. Offer them a good wage, a fixed term residents visa and the opportunity to apply for full citizenship, if they don't cause any issues during the initial fixed term visa.
Even a blind person can see that the current approach isn't working and hasn't worked, despite approx a decade of the politicans trying to stick with it... it's time for a new approach, not repeating the same mistakes, time and time again, but expecting a different result.
It's pure stupidity and complete laziness from our elected Goverment, to be allowing private entities profit at the cost of the tax payer.
We need to think about both the social benefit and the financial impact of providing housing...
The State has plenty of funds, so could easily invest, either directly or via a joint venture, to develop land that it currently owns and is not using and / or redevelop vacant buildings.
Once built, give people in need of housing a five year fixed term lease, on beneficial terms, but without automatic right to renew at the end of the 5-year term, with automatic eviction instead and sale of the vacant properties into the private market, thereafter.
That gives people 5-years to get themselves sorted out, and ready to return to the non-subsidised private residential market.
As for who will build the housing, simply advertise for trades people to come here, from other parts of the world, just like we've seen other counties do in times past. Offer them a good wage, a fixed term residents visa and the opportunity to apply for full citizenship, if they don't cause any issues during the initial fixed term visa.
Even a blind person can see that the current approach isn't working and hasn't worked, despite approx a decade of the politicans trying to stick with it... it's time for a new approach, not repeating the same mistakes, time and time again, but expecting a different result.
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That's all well and good. But you can't push the entire public housing into the private housing sector and not have a massive impact on private housing market. It's completely broken the housing market for decades.
It might be cheaper in the short term but they are at this for decades. In the long term it's not cheaper. Any advantage of being able to react to market changes is lost in the long term.
It's like a broken clock. It will be right at some point. But the majority of the time it's broken.
Couldn't agree more.
A lot of people won't be able to or simply won't bother 'sorting themselves out' - no government is going to allow mass evictions after five years. Can you imagine the outcry 'this is my home' (which it is the family has been living there for five years) and now I'm being evicted and a wealthy person is buying my home out from under me.
This is 100% correct. A lot of our housing problems stem from lack of investment in public housing. A percentage of the population, for whatever reason (often simply the person is doing a vitally important but low paid job) will not be able to afford a home and must be supported publicly. The private sector should never have been involved in this area.
But it looks as if the PRS is increasingly being co-opted as a social housing provider. This is James Browne at a recent Housing Committee hearing explaining the reason behind the upcoming ban on no fault evictions. The reason these tenants are becoming homeless is because they are in the PRS where they should not be and when they are evicted there is no social housing available for them.
We are bringing in new security of tenure for tenants because we know 40% of the families ending up in homelessness are in that position as a result of the serving of a notice of termination. We are, therefore, strengthening tenants' rights to prevent people going into homelessness.
Security of tenure for tenants is fine in itself. But in Europe it's usually accompanied by strong legislation protecting landlords. We don't have that.
The reason the security of tenure has come in is because landlords have no other legislation to protect themselves. And it gets abused.
The argument is landlords aren't leaving the market, but we need v security of tenure for tenants when landlords sell up. Can't have it both ways.
Where's the legislation that would entice a landlord back into the market.
The reason the security of tenure has come in is because landlords have no other legislation to protect themselves. And it gets abused.
The argument is landlords aren't leaving the market, but we need v security of tenure for tenants when landlords sell up. Can't have it both ways.
Where's the legislation that would entice a landlord back into the market.