Housing in Ireland: A broken system.

[clinteastwood]

Yes Purple agreed - the Nuclear arguement was a classic irish solution. Anyhow, we'll have 500MW of red-electrons in the grid from La France in 2027.

The new regulations for new housing isnt the cause of the severe lack of affordability. the new regs are what should have been done years ago .

 

[lff12]

what is dual aspect...i havent heard of that ?....is it relating to the whether the user is disabled or something ?

Correct - it was originally pushed in via Dublin city I if I remember right around 2007, and when the Greens got into govt year it eventually got onto binding ministerial guidelines. It was only one of a number of "improvements" to standards mind you, at a time that also included a mandated increase in minimum size to 55m2 for 1 bed units, with additional requirement that a "majority" exceed this already gargantuan size by 10%.

 

[lff12]

Thanks. I can see why North facing appmts should have a east or west side , but otherwise seems a rolls royce idea.

any spec for the min size ?

According to an appeal I read through from ABP last year there was no minimum size in the 1990s. Typically 1 bed units were sized from 30-40m2, mostly in the region of 37-38m2 (giving you a unit sized (5 to 6)x(7 to 8)m2. Luxury units were big, budget units were small. Minimum size of 45m2 came in DCC early 00s, and then in 2007 someone had the bright idea of imposing a minimum size of 55m2. Unsurprisingly, new apartment building collapsed pretty soon after that. The 2015 change allowed a minimum studio size of 40m2.

If you are getting very incensed about these sizes being "small" bear in mind that most 2 bed homes are around 65-80m2 and "flats" in pre63s are very often under 20m2.

AFAIK ministerial guidelines trump local area plans and council directives, with some leeway especially for refurbishing an older building or buildings as apartments for viability.

North facing apartments are dealt with in the ministerial guidelines but in general they are discouraged - generally its accepted now that large south facing windows are not inferior to insisting on dual aspect because the latter encouraged a lot of "shoebox" designs where you had two long narrow apartments on either side of an entrance hall punctuated by a stairwell. And very often the aspects on a lot of the long narrow opposite side twin aspect designs had one of those sides facing onto a yard or carpark or something equally less than salubrious.

 

[lff12]

However it is arguable that rather than abolish directly building social housing and largely replacing it with part V, they could have changed how they accomplished it. Building 1200 homes in one estate immediately raises red flags. It is very unusual for privately developed estates to be built to this scale. Estates are usually split into smaller scale of 50-200 houses, even if they are right beside each other. This is to help create a sense of belonging to the local, smaller, community and to localise services for these estates eg shops, creches etc.

Part V did not "abolish" directly building social housing - it was not designed to do that. That happened as a result of unintended consequences as suddenly the councils basically had to be offered proportion of every new scheme.

Obviously building one ginormous estate, likely with sparse facilities and then capping the income level of people there to mostly unemployed is going to turn out terribly. That doesn't mean the government should have stopped direct building. The could have split it into smaller local estates, supported by localised facilities. Then they could have allowed renters across a broader range of incomes to rent it, so by choice it would become a mixed income community. Essentially what they do in Vienna.

And yet this exists almost everywhere in Dublin especially since the late 90s and even before that - its a direct result of developers having bought large land banks in the distant past and LAs are not happy at the idea of piecemeal development on such lands. The council of course did the same over time for exactly the same reason - just look at the huge size of Marino! Often large scale council builds were a response to very pressing local needs.
The reason we don't have "mixed income" communities is that we've rarely had the kind of scale needed to provision housing for very large numbers - however it did slightly happen in the social housing boom in the 60s and 70s - Shannon is a good example of a scheme that was very mixed - but unfortunately what tended to happen in the past was that local council workers who were "in the know" got the housing because outsiders didn't know about the schemes or didn't qualify under limited local needs rules.

Instead they continued to cap the provision of social houses to mostly unemployed. (Although I will give them credit that the most recent income cap increases have greatly raised this.) Then sprinkled these people amongst private estates using part V. Great if the tenants are nice. But if you have the few same trouble makers who gave the old social housing states a bad name, now you've just spread the misery to John and Mary who are drowning in half a million euro of mortgage debt to live in the identical 2/3 bed house. If there are no provisions to effectively deal with this anti social behaviour, little is done. The police think it's a civil matter, unless serious assault or damage is involved. The council don't want to hear it as they have to house them somewhere, so evictions just cause them more problems. The trouble making tenants know it and realise they have nothing to lose. Worst case they go to prison for a few years (publicly funded) and then they have to be housed again when they come out.

Nobody "caps" provision of social housing to the unemployed. It happens as a result of demand being far above provisioning. If there was far more housing available, there would be a case for housing working people as we would not allocate housing to those less in need ahead of the underpriviliged.

Essentially anti social behaviour is blamed for the failings of the old council house estates. Yet little was actually done to deal with this. Instead part V helps spread it out, so statistically it looks a lot nicer, than having pockets of concentration. The actual people living in these anti social situations can just be ignored. I would bet it's not the majority of politicians living in the making of their own policies. If you were living in a situation similar to John and Mary above, it would be a lot easier to stomach if you knew you were also paying 10-15% of your income on the home. It's a lot less easier to stomach when they are forking out two grand in mortgage and fees and the trouble tenants are paying 10-15% of net income.

They are not just ignored - they show up at TDs constituency clinics every week - there's a particular case in a very expensive new build development a few km from me where one social allocation home went to a family who are absolutely tormenting the others who spent figures over 600k for the privilege of being driven mad by this family. But then again, schemes can find a neighbour among them who is equally awful who bought their home or rented it privately. And having had very bad tenants beside me in cheap rentals, it really isn't great even if you are only paying a modest rent, your life is still made a misery.

Another issue arising now is some councillors calling for a scheme similar to the tenant purchase scheme to be set up for part V houses. Allowing part V housing tenants to buy the homes at a substantial discount. Thankfully this is being opposed by some politicians. This would be another unjust policy and who knows if it makes it across the line one day. Essentially the government buying out private homes and giving it away at a discount, to the detriment of every mortgaged private purchaser in the estate, who gets no discount.

This already exists: its exactly where the bulk of "affordable housing" comes from. It comes directly from the part V allocation. Part V stipulates "social and affordable", not just social. Where did you think "affordable housing" was coming from?

 

[lff12]

All new builds in the UK have to at least C rated, with the majority built A or B. Without reading building regs it's hard to tell which rating corresponds to our rating. They go A, B, C, D etc. we go A1, A2, A3, B1, B2, B3 etc. However they have signed up to the same contractual carbon targets we have, and if they don't meet them they'll be hit with the same massive fines.

Correct - case since 2019 - its because 40% of our carbon emissions come from our homes, and it forces the arm of developers to build to that spec or higher. One of the rationales also is to remove solid fuel heating from new builds - though of course that won't stop a buyer from installing a wood burning stove subsequently. I'm guessing this is forcing the costs onto developers and buyers rather than trying to do something about the 16% of the population who rely entirely on solid fuels to heat their homes.

 

[lff12]

I didnt mention area....what is the min size of a single 1bed studio appmt. For example, I used to live in a 29.4m2 appmt 20yrs ago.

clearly like everything else in life SIZE MATTERS! - but there isnt any difficulty in a single person living in a 30m2 appmt -if its properly designed

40m2 is the minimum size for a purpose studio apartment, but very few of these actually get built.

You were more likely living in a pre-63 converted unit - as these were ostensibly converted without planning permission before the 1963 planning act came into force, there was no minimum standards in place, and therefore no minimum size.
* Note: a lot of so-called "pre 63" conversions are actually illegal conversions done long after 1963, but thats a generally understood term for an internal subdivision into homes without planning approvals. In other countries sometimes called "HMOs": Homes in Multiple Occupation.

FWIW I lived for 12 very happy years in a 37.5m2 one bed unit - lovely development and very secure. It rarely gets mentioned, but one of the things that made it possible for Finland to eradicate homelessness was realising that minimum sizes were too big and therefore more expensive and allowing smaller units (typically around 28m2) for studios made it easier to find housing for the less well off and people entering independent living for the first time.

 

[lff12]

It's been a while since I looked in detail, dual aspect came up as a bugbear, as it had big implications for the layout of complexes and how many apartments could be fit in.

It effectively made apartment building entirely unviable for quite a long time. After the The Elysian was finished in Cork in 2008, no apartment development of similar scale was built in Cork for over 12 years.

 

[Ajax123]

Part V did not "abolish" directly building social housing - it was not designed to do that. That happened as a result of unintended consequences as suddenly the councils basically had to be offered proportion of every new scheme.

How is it an unintended consequence when it was designed to operate in that manner? Today direct building (by tender) of social housing can be organised by local authorities under part 8. But part V was designed to be the main avenue for provision of social housing. This is what was designed to replace the need for direct building.

Nobody "caps" provision of social housing to the unemployed. It happens as a result of demand being far above provisioning. If there was far more housing available, there would be a case for housing working people as we would not allocate housing to those less in need ahead of the underpriviliged.

It was essentially capped by low ceilings on income levels to be eligible for a social housing . Then from that pool there is a system of deciding who is most "in need".

"In need" and "underprivileged" are so loosely thrown around in Ireland today. As is the word 'homeless". If you have a severe disability for life I think most people would be in consensus that it can considered "in need". If you have three kids and are unemployed and can't hold a long term relationship then you are also considered "in need". A potential problem is in Ireland jobseekers allowance has no end date. In other countries they eventually cut you off or reduce the rate continuously over time until it becomes very low. This effectively means in Ireland anyone can choose to be unemployed for life at any time and it will be covered for as long as they want to and can put up with any hoops intreo make them jump through for a while. The longer you are unemployed the more benefits you become eligible for.

Earning 50k as a single female teacher because you decided to put education first and gain employment? Single because you want to gain a stable long term relationship and be financially stable before you have kids? Well then you are considered "privileged" and are too well off so to the bottom of the housing list you go. Tough luck you can't find affordable housing.

If the same person quit their job, went unemployed, had two kids, claimed one parent family and presented "homeless" they are suddenly an "underprivileged" and "socially and economically disregarded" section of society and need lots of supports.

You're quickly considered privileged in the Ireland if you worked for anything and achieved something from it.

They are not just ignored - they show up at TDs constituency clinics every week - there's a particular case in a very expensive new build development a few km from me where one social allocation home went to a family who are absolutely tormenting the others who spent figures over 600k for the privilege of being driven mad by this family. But then again, schemes can find a neighbour among them who is equally awful who bought their home or rented it privately. And having had very bad tenants beside me in cheap rentals, it really isn't great even if you are only paying a modest rent, your life is still made a misery.

Agreed but the risk factor is higher in social housing for many of the reasons we have already discussed eg low maximum incomes for eligibility etc. If this wasn't the case, then no one would have been complaining about the higher prevalence of antisocial behaviour in the older council housing estates.

These particular cases show that part V doesn't just magically work to solve social issues. That socially housed family don't just magically want to embark on 10-15 year education and work journey it would take to afford a mortgage to live in that same house just because they live beside these people. If anything it gives them a reason to laugh down at and torment everyone else in this estate as they got the same home but didn't do any of that to afford it. If they wreck the estate and drive resale values down, everyone who bought in at 600k+ stands to loose money really quickly if they want to sell to escape. The socially housed family have no stake in this risk. They just got a 600k house for a rent that can be as little as €120 a month.

Who are the fools in this real life scenario? What are the TD's going to do about it?

This already exists: its exactly where the bulk of "affordable housing" comes from. It comes directly from the part V allocation. Part V stipulates "social and affordable", not just social. Where did you think "affordable housing" was coming from?

It's not the same. It used to be pre crash. In the current affordable housing scheme the government take an equity share in your house. For example if the discount is 20%, they own 20% of that house, forever. If you die they'll take their 20% share back. After 40 years you have to pay the government out of their stake although I don't know how they plan to enforce this. Also if the price of your house goes up, the amount you owe the government goes up too, as it's a fixed percentage of the market value at all times. For example if on a 400k property they give you an 80k discount and after 5 years the market value is 500k and you want to pay off your share, it would now by 100k.

In the tenancy purchase scheme for council houses, the discount is clawed back if you sell immediately. This clawback reduces by 2% per year until it's zero after 20-30 years. (40-60% discount). This means if market rates are high you can potentially start to profit rather quickly from a resale.

Affordable housing, and the first home scheme which works in the same manner really, look like terrible schemes for the tenants compared to the old affordable housing schemes and any of the schemes to buy a council house at discount.

 

[clinteastwood]

40m2 is the minimum size for a purpose studio apartment, but very few of these actually get built.

You were more likely living in a pre-63 converted unit - as these were ostensibly converted without planning permission before the 1963 planning act came into force, there was no minimum standards in place, and therefore no minimum size.
* Note: a lot of so-called "pre 63" conversions are actually illegal conversions done long after 1963, but thats a generally understood term for an internal subdivision into homes without planning approvals. In other countries sometimes called "HMOs": Homes in Multiple Occupation.

FWIW I lived for 12 very happy years in a 37.5m2 one bed unit - lovely development and very secure. It rarely gets mentioned, but one of the things that made it possible for Finland to eradicate homelessness was realising that minimum sizes were too big and therefore more expensive and allowing smaller units (typically around 28m2) for studios made it easier to find housing for the less well off and people entering independent living for the first time.

Interesting !. The 29.4m2 appmt I lived in was in Makelankatu Helsinki, a working class district. The appartments were built in 1930s. Despite its small size, one had access to a basement for washing machine/drying/storage of bikes, sauna. In the loft we had a small 4mq cage area where you could store your junk ...like vinyl records for one!

I pass the mentioned Elysian tower nearly every week. Also known once as the Idle tower due to lack of buyers, and its closeness to the Idle Inn pub, it is full now. However my wife can't help commenting when passing about seeing somebodies laundry or pram/bike jammed up against the window on the 10th floor and wonder about the poor designs compared to the 29.4msq facilites from 1930's in the shoebox flat in Makelankatu

Specifying a min of 55msq or 40msq is daft....!

 

[lff12]

How is it an unintended consequence when it was designed to operate in that manner? Today direct building (by tender) of social housing can be organised by local authorities under part 8. But part V was designed to be the main avenue for provision of social housing. This is what was designed to replace the need for direct building.

Read the link I posted earlier. Part V was NOT designed to replace social housing. It was (and is still considered to be) designed to give the state a share in the development of land owned by private developers. Nowhere in any debate, in any committee or in the review of Part V will you see an intention to replace social housing with Part V social acquisitions. It was intended to give the state a "share", nothing more. The unintended consequences of LAs replacing their in house design and build process with Part V allocations was unintentional, and not in the original concept for part V.

 

[lff12]

How is it an unintended consequence when it was designed to operate in that manner? Today direct building (by tender) of social housing can be organised by local authorities under part 8. But part V was designed to be the main avenue for provision of social housing. This is what was designed to replace the need for direct building.

It was essentially capped by low ceilings on income levels to be eligible for a social housing . Then from that pool there is a system of deciding who is most "in need".

Again, this isn't true - income levels were actually greatly increased for eligibility for social homes just recently - however the reality is that demand trumps supply and the highest priority goes to those with the most pressing need - i.e. lowest incomes and typically long term welfare.
AHBs can pluck some cases outside of pure income/family size out into their developments or open applications directly (but still have requirements for being on the housing list).
And on top of that every couple of years homeless are either given priority or having priority removed depending on the political trend of the day.
Its number of properties available and makeup of local deprivation that drives current high deprivation levels in social housing allocations. Which is not unreasonable when you consider that the objective of social housing is to house those who cannot house themselves.

"In need" and "underprivileged" are so loosely thrown around in Ireland today. As is the word 'homeless". If you have a severe disability for life I think most people would be in consensus that it can considered "in need". If you have three kids and are unemployed and can't hold a long term relationship then you are also considered "in need". A potential problem is in Ireland jobseekers allowance has no end date. In other countries they eventually cut you off or reduce the rate continuously over time until it becomes very low. This effectively means in Ireland anyone can choose to be unemployed for life at any time and it will be covered for as long as they want to and can put up with any hoops intreo make them jump through for a while. The longer you are unemployed the more benefits you become eligible for.

This isn't true and is a commonly repeated myth - those who don't engage can, and do have their welfare suspended.

It's not the same. It used to be pre crash. In the current affordable housing scheme the government take an equity share in your house. For example if the discount is 20%, they own 20% of that house, forever. If you die they'll take their 20% share back. After 40 years you have to pay the government out of their stake although I don't know how they plan to enforce this. Also if the price of your house goes up, the amount you owe the government goes up too, as it's a fixed percentage of the market value at all times. For example if on a 400k property they give you an 80k discount and after 5 years the market value is 500k and you want to pay off your share, it would now by 100k.

In the tenancy purchase scheme for council houses, the discount is clawed back if you sell immediately. This clawback reduces by 2% per year until it's zero after 20-30 years. (40-60% discount). This means if market rates are high you can potentially start to profit rather quickly from a resale.

Affordable housing, and the first home scheme which works in the same manner really, look like terrible schemes for the tenants compared to the old affordable housing schemes and any of the schemes to buy a council house at discount.

I'm not sure where you are getting that information from as there are many variants and some variations again as to how local authorities run their own versions.
This site is a reasonably good description of the current scheme and how it operates and also explains the different options. It also describes the difference with the pre 2011 scheme. Clawbacks are a part of any scheme and rightly so - such people had significant discounts on market pricing & its not unreasonable to claw some of that back as part of a public sale.
The tenancy scheme you describe is only 1 of 4 different variations of the scheme that existed since the 1995 version of the scheme - and there's considerably more terms and conditions than the few you cherry picked.