Populist parties force reduction in number of social and affordable homes

Hi Purple - I don't know the site, but let's assume that there is no reason not to build there as you suggest. But was the proposal appropriate?

This is what An Bord Pleanála said, as quoted by the Irish Times.

In its formal refusal, the appeals board stated that the scheme would represent a visually prominent and monolithic form of development. It also concluded that the scheme would be visually obtrusive and seriously detract from the visual amenities of the area.

The appeals board also refused permission after finding that the scheme would fail to provide adequate residential amenities for future occupants. The board made this finding due to the number of single-aspect apartments in the scheme; the design of excessively long internal corridors with lack of natural light and adequate ventilation and overlooking between apartments.


The refusal by the board follows a recommendation by Dublin City Council to deny planning permission.
 
Purple said:
She objected because they were build to rent. That's an ideological objection, not a planning suitability one.
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If a site is suitable for 100 apartments, I should be allowed build them and then decide if I want to let them or sell them.

It doesn't seem as if McDonald's objection was the reason they were refused?

However, in her objection, Ms McDonald argued that the build-to-rent development does not meet the needs of the local community, neither does it foster active citizenship.

“Build-to-rent developments are about maximising profits for developers through inflated rental costs which in turn pushes up the value of land and house price inflation in the city,” she said.

I presume that if more apartments are built in an area, the cost of rent will fall.

Brendan
 
To me, most of the objections except ventilation & overlooking between apartments seem spurious.

Seriously, corridors without natural light and apartments not being dual aspect?
 
odyssey06 said:
To me, most of the objections except ventilation & overlooking between apartments seem spurious.
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The problem with planning is its complete and utter vagueness. A decision never says things like: "on this site you may construct no more than a 30mx30mx15m building". It's all about "visual amenity" and uses subjective terms like "obtrusive", "monolithic", "character of the neighbourhood", etc, etc.

There is no real standard for harm to neighbouring properties either. It's very easy to calculate how much sunlight will be lost by a new structure, and how far windows will be from existing ones. But it's very hard to find a clear, objective standard as to what is and is not acceptable in a planning decision.

I mean on AAM someone can ask a question about how to make gifts to family members to avoid tax and how it will be treated by Revenue. Posters will point them to the law, the guidance, and relevant practice. You will generally get a very good idea of what you want to do is inside the rules or not. It's the same in the areas of law I deal with professionally where there is much greater certainty involved, both in the primary legislation and how it is implemented administratively.


But whenever I read a planning decision I am left utterly stumped. It's never clear what exact feature or dimension caused the rejection, and what adjustment would cause acceptance. It seems like a vast waste of time and money for everyone involved.
 
There will be lovely visual amenties and aspects for the people when they are sleeping on benches, ditches and tents. Planners should work with developers and say this would be acceptable as an alternative. That, at a minimum is required in a national emergency. Mary Louise saying build-to-rent isn't fostering an active neightbourhood. In other words, all private sales, would that be acceptable to her? Or does she want to bang her drum about social housing and nothing else. Who the hell pays for this social housing? Big corporate Ireland? Fat cat landlords with one property rented out for their pension. SF are in cuckoo land and people need a dose of them in government to soften their cough. Unfortunately, the damage they could potentially do to the long-term development in Ireland of attracting FDI and investment could be very bad.

In a housing crisis, I will take 100 build-to-rent apartments over nothing being built. If the rents are too dear, they can lie idle. If investors want to leave them lie idle, hit them with a vacant tax. But get supply built and availability increasing. 35 properties to rent in Cork City this morning and some of those are shared accommodation, so the owner has posted in the wrong section on Daft. 354 properties to rent in Dublin City.

In comparison, on Rightmove this morning, there's 25,198 properties to rent in London. If you look at it from a ratio perspective, there's one property to rent in London right now for every 354 people who live in London. In Dublin, there's one property to rent right now for every 1,624 people who live there. There in lies your problem. It's Supple stupid. Get supply, be it private sales, private rental, build-to-rent, cost-rent, social housing, increasing. No one thing will solve the problem, but each one thing will chip away at the problem and contribute to its resolution in time.
 
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Imagine if we solved the housing crisis, the health crisis and whatever is deemed to be a crisis by the media and politicians , wed probably never need an election again.

And is it possible? 5m of us and with a good level of wealth, an educated population in the main and small enough geographically.

But every time a solution is proposed it usually is shot down by the same political entities that are crying blue murder.

" Half a crust is better than nothing "
 
We should be careful what we wish for. Modular houses are being built for Ukrainian refugees. The build time will be 16 weeks. The lifetime of these modular homes is 60 years. This I suspect will be extended to house our ‘houseless’. As I am old enough to remember the social experiment that was Ballymun this could end up being similar. On a train journey through the UK recently I saw many permanent static caravan sites.
 
Why do you think this could end up being similar to Ballymun?
 
PGF2016 said:
Why do you think this could end up being similar to Ballymun?
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Most of the occupants in Ballymun were in receipt of social welfare or had low income jobs. It became a ghetto. I am sure there is a more politically correct name. After Ballymun was demolished the best practice was to house people in mixed estates. Hence our current model of social housing. By grouping people by socio economic category together it will create the same again.
 
Purple said:
There was nothing wrong with the buildings in Ballymun.
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There was nothing wrong with the buildings. It was the grouping together of people who were socially deprived that caused drug abuse, crime and poverty. Those that could move out did but many others could not.
 
I suppose the only difference now is that it's not just the unemployed or deprived who are unable to purchase a home. There are many gainfully employed people who can't due to a lack of supply.
 
PGF2016 said:
I suppose the only difference now is that it's not just the unemployed or deprived who are unable to purchase a home. There are many gainfully employed people who can't due to a lack of supply.
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It's not just due to lack of supply. We need to get away from the notion that supply is the reason for the massive increase in price. That's down to the massive increase in the supply of money.
 
Unfortunately there are reps who object to every single proposal in their areas!
 
Silversurfer said:
There was nothing wrong with the buildings. It was the grouping together of people who were socially deprived that caused drug abuse, crime and poverty. Those that could move out did but many others could not.
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There was a range of issues in Ballymun - the design of the towers made them hard to maintain and eventually the council fell so far behind on basic maintenance that basic amenities like lifts were left not working. Secondly, yes, there was a large concentration of people who were out of work - but this was exacerbated by the location which at the time was nowhere near centres of work. Transport and local services did not follow the developments and there were several stages where there were concerns about the last bank branch closing etc. Finally, drugs came to Ballymun and finished off all of the other problems.

Flats were not actually that bad - my mother had a couple of second cousins in them, but they didn't stay there.
 
Ballymun was built as a solution to the need for social housing for 3000 people. The flats had central heating and were larger than most corporation houses of that time. Maybe not all facilities were there but it had a swimming pool. Which was a rare luxury in Ireland! Ballymun was next door to Santry, Collins Avenue, Glasnevin Ave (Ballymun Ave) and Ballymun Road all of which had the same transport links to available employment….
 
The main problem with the flats was a significant minority of the people who lived in them. The same thing happens whenever such developments are built anywhere in the world. It is to the credit of successive governments that they have not built such developments again, even in the face of the pressure they are under to deliver social housing.
 
If you look at the places the people in Ballymun were relocated from, and other locations they were relocated to - did they not develop similar issues as Ballymun?

Had Ballymun been used as accomodation for airport workers, Beaumont hospital workers or students, and maintained properly, perhaps they would still be going ok today.
 
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