Fixing the housing crisis without massively increasing tax or borrowing

golfwallah

Deleted User wrote: »

Such as?

The Minister responsible for housing could quite easily call in county managers to come up with workable solutions. They are the people with all the facts and levers of power available to them.

If they can't or won't deliver, he should demand their resignations. And I doubt if he would end up with resignations - much more likely that we would have started a process of finding real solutions.

Think back a few decades to the car industry strikes in France. They had a socialist prime minister, then, Francois Mitterrand, who called in the captains of French car companies to solve the problem. They all said it was impossible. Mitterrand gave them a few days to either find solutions or tender their resignations. He was prepared to take a risk - and, guess what, solutions were found and the strikes ended, without a single resignation.

The solution you proffer is to 'find a solution'.

Can you suggest an actual solution that might be offered instead by one of those county managers' that you speak of.

You suggest that 'discussions until a solution is found' is a solution in itself. I would argue vehemently that it is not. It's a pathway to a solution.

Problem - 'We have a chronic under supply of adequate housing in desirable and necessary areas'

There are no solutions that are I can think of currently that fit within your thread title constraints. Can you offer any?

Zubeneschamali

golfwallah wrote: »

what about doing something about the problem?

We must do something!

This mad idea is something.

Therefore we must do this mad thing.

golfwallah

Deleted User wrote: »

The solution you proffer is to 'find a solution'.

Can you suggest an actual solution that might be offered instead by one of those county managers' that you speak of.

You suggest that 'discussions until a solution is found' is a solution in itself. I would argue vehemently that it is not. It's a pathway to a solution.

Problem - 'We have a chronic under supply of adequate housing in desirable and necessary areas'

There are no solutions that are I can think of currently that fit within your thread title constraints. Can you offer any?

My first post on this thread would help towards a solution.

That's just one initiative.

Let's face it, all the statistics, news items and reports by experts are calling it a "housing crisis". And crises, being great exceptions to what what most people regards as normal, demand appropriate crisis solving measures that will be unpopular in some quarters.

Such measures could include, reducing the number of council house offers that can be refused by people on the housing list (currently 3 - click article) and/or slowing down the continuing sale of local authority housing (see attached).

There's also the options of allowing denser house development, easing up on development levies, using taxation measure to make it more expensive to hold onto undeveloped housing land, etc.

I'm afraid the missing ingredient is political leadership and will to start taking the hard steps needed to address this growing housing crisis. Unfortunately, the cost of fixing the crisis doesn't fit in with the current political narrative Result is social deprivation for many children, the cost of which is likely be far greater in the long run than any hassle or cost of fixing the problem more quickly right now.

riclad

The question is will the government be willing to make radical changes to
build the 30k social housing units needed ,
or just rely on the market and maybe reduce the tax,es to encourage extra building.
WE have a lot of strange rules which increase building costs ,
eg there has to a car park space for all apartments ,
even though half the residents use bikes or bus,es ,do not own a car.
And have no wish to own a car.
20 social housing units built in the last 6 months ,
show the councils do not have the money for large building projects .

golfwallah

golfwallah wrote: »

My first post on this thread would help towards a solution.

No it wouldn't. It doesn't solve anything whatsoever about the issue!

It's simply CPOs, they are not free. They will cost the taxpayer money (either through increased taxes or adding to the National Debt).

golfwallah wrote: »

That's just one initiative.

Let's face it, all the statistics, news items and reports by experts are calling it a "housing crisis". And crises, being great exceptions to what what most people regards as normal, demand appropriate crisis solving measures that will be unpopular in some quarters.

Such measures could include, reducing the number of council house offers that can be refused by people on the housing list (currently 3 - click article) and/or slowing down the continuing sale of local authority housing (see attached).

Doesn't solve the problem of lack of suitable housing units in suitable places. Tiny number of people who would actually feel any effects. The houses that are refused are ultimately lived in by others or unsuitable for use so can't see how this has any effect on medium-long term supply of houses whatseover. The housing authority homes being sold (so long as aren't being re-zoned etc) will also be habited, and so no change in numbers wanting a house, and number of houses available.

golfwallah wrote: »

There's also the options of allowing denser house development, easing up on development levies, using taxation measure to make it more expensive to hold onto undeveloped housing land, etc.

Doesn't directly solve the problem, though can of course incentivise others into solving the problem by making it profitable to do so, or in the second case, penalising those who could and do not.

golfwallah wrote: »

I'm afraid the missing ingredient is political leadership and will to start taking the hard steps needed to address this growing housing crisis. Unfortunately, the cost of fixing the crisis doesn't fit in with the current political narrative Result is social deprivation for many children, the cost of which is likely be far greater in the long run than any hassle or cost of fixing the problem more quickly right now.

The missing ingredient is more homes, not political will. Loads of homes. Houses, apartments, bedsits, flats, gafs. Places to live in. How you get these homes is up for debate. Homes that people want to live in, in places that people want to live in. Now.

Nothing that doesn't either directly add more homes into the areas that people want to live in, and/or somehow change the areas that people want to live in to places that have vacant homes will solve any housing crisis.

golfwallah

@Beckett Glamorous Waffle, Easy on there! You’re the guy looking for suggestions, yet your only contribution to the debate is to knock the general proposal that those put in place to do the job should either do it or resign, or to specific proposals like the ones I put forward.

You’re acting like a Monday morning quarterback, a hurler on the ditch, well able to criticise, yet offering no counter-proposals yourself.

Deleted User wrote: »

No it wouldn't. It doesn't solve anything whatsoever about the issue!

It's simply CPOs, they are not free. They will cost the taxpayer money (either through increased taxes or adding to the National Debt).

Nobody is saying the councils should get houses for free. It’s up to our elected political leaders and senior council officials to find ways to generate the funds required. They could start off selling off surplus assets that benefit only a minority. For example, councils still own and run golf courses at a loss, even though there are many more golf courses in the country than are needed. They also lease council owned land to wealthy golf clubs at way below market rates. I’m sure more would come out, if councils had transparent accounts, rather than the highly aggregated ones that have been agreed comfortably between county managers and the Department of the Environment.

But, then doing something about this kind of thing might upset a few people and show up council inefficiencies to public scrutiny and debate. Better to leave kids and their parents in temporary hotel accommodation, perhaps? Also, it’s easier to dump the provision of social housing onto voluntary bodies – with the added bonus of any borrowings having to be guaranteed by volunteers and not considered part of the national debt. This pathetic approach to public housing would be considered unbelievable, if it weren’t true and safely buried under a morass of political hype and inertia.

Doesn't solve the problem of lack of suitable housing units in suitable places. Tiny number of people who would actually feel any effects. The houses that are refused are ultimately lived in by others or unsuitable for use so can't see how this has any effect on medium-long term supply of houses whatseover. The housing authority homes being sold (so long as aren't being re-zoned etc) will also be habited, and so no change in numbers wanting a house, and number of houses available.

Nobody is claiming that the proposed measures would solve the supply problem. However, it would reduce the size of public housing lists and simplify administration. Remember this is a crisis and demands a crisis response if it is to be dealt with, particularly, when moves to increase supply have not been producing the desired results. Sale of social housing into the private sector market also impacts on housing lists and simply transfers social properties to those whose financial circumstances have improved and can now afford to buy their homes. So this too, shrinks the supply of social housing – social housing is for people who can’t afford to pay market rates, not for those who can. It’s up to the councils and politicians to solve that problem and take the heat on it!

Doesn't directly solve the problem, though can of course incentivise others into solving the problem by making it profitable to do so, or in the second case, penalising those who could and do not.

I think we’re both agreed on that!

The missing ingredient is more homes, not political will. Loads of homes. Houses, apartments, bedsits, flats, gafs. Places to live in. How you get these homes is up for debate. Homes that people want to live in, in places that people want to live in. Now.

Nothing that doesn't either directly add more homes into the areas that people want to live in, and/or somehow change the areas that people want to live in to places that have vacant homes will solve any housing crisis.

Almost everyone agrees that we need more homes – and the quicker the better. But the market ain’t doing it – nor is the public sector. There's plenty of zoned land about but zoned serviced land (vis a vis water, sewage, etc.) is in short supply plus the charges levied on builders make it unprofitable to build. How can this issue be solved without political will and leadership? We’ve all witnessed the debacle of Irish Water, whose capital plans have now been pushed out way into the future, not to mention the shoddy way it was rolled out politically. Houses built “Now”, is not a demand that rests easily with the current political mood for lower taxes and a background of maxed out water infrastructure!

KingBrian2

Lets not forget whenever they build these housing developments you have the criminal element who try to stop them from getting construction underway. The Ballymun incident just recently and before that the vandals and rent a mob that went aft IW with such venom.

p___

hmmm wrote: »

OK then. Instead of dumping random houses all over the country onto councils who wouldn't know how to maintain or even what to do with them, or instead of the banks and NAMA turning themselves into Ireland's biggest estate agent, how about we package up large quantities of the repossessed houses/NAMA housing, and sell them as a package to some company who has the ability and the will to sell these houses to end purchasers.

Even more obviously, how about we sell these houses to people such as working families who are paying taxes to support the welfare state and are probably renting in a far flung commuter estate, rather than handing them out to people "on the social"?

Your second point makes sense, the first is already being done in a way, Nama have been selling properties in bulk to american investment companies at below the market reate for the past few years, these companies are then upping the rent rather than selling them on.

golfwallah

Godge wrote: »

Solution is to grow the economy to create the fiscal space for housing measures.

Don't think so.

Based on this report from earlier this year, councils have an abysmal track record of waste and poor decision making when it comes to acquiring land for housing - to such an extent that the local government reckoned that 20 were technically insolvent at end 2013.

The facts are that councils have badly screwed up on housing, are trying to dump their responsibilities for social housing onto voluntary bodies, have maxed out on borrowing and have large land banks, without delivering results on much needed social housing.

By any impartial standards they are unfit for purpose and in need of root and branch re-organisation. If they were in the private sector, many councils would have been wound up and either sold off or amalgamated into more business focussed entities, with a considerable redundancy fallout. Let's face it, councils have failed on water, waste collection and housing - why can't they be scrapped, along with the jobs of county councillor and highly paid managers who preside over them?

Villa05

golfwallah wrote:

unfit for purpose

Unfortunately this phrase and public services is all too common in ireland

GFT

How about the responsibility lying with the idiot that thought getting a Mortgage way beyond their means was a good idea?

benjamin d

riclad wrote: »

WE have a lot of strange rules which increase building costs ,
eg there has to a car park space for all apartments ,
even though half the residents use bikes or bus,es ,do not own a car.
And have no wish to own a car

Sorry I have to comment on this. Have you ever actually BEEN to an apartment block, or practically any housing estate in the country? There are cars on the footpath, bike lanes, greens, alleys, shrubs, roads, cars littered absolutely everywhere. I think it's a disgrace that developers can get away with only providing one space per apartment when even the average one bed has two cars. Three bed apartments may have 4 or 5 cars to park. Even if public transport was decent in Dublin I'd still need a car for work or going back home etc, as would most people I'd imagine.

Victor

benjamin d wrote: »

Three bed apartments may have 4 or 5 cars to park.

Do you not see this as problematic? the policies are there to discourage excessive car usage and ownership.

Why should the people who don't have cars or need parking spaces subsidise those that do?

benjamin d

Victor wrote: »

Do you not see this as problematic? the policies are there to discourage excessive car usage and ownership.

Why should the people who don't have cars or need parking spaces subsidise those that do?

I agree it's problematic. When I was a kid we used to run around and play football on streets and even roads around estates, only rarely having to wait for a passing car. Those same estates now have maybe ten times more cars in them, so many that they're on the play areas and footpaths. Modern apartment blocks with one space per flat are littered with cars and incredibly dangerous for kids and pedestrians when all open space is parked on.
Everyone would love Ireland's overreliance on cars to be solved but the fact is that things are how they are. Why should developers be allowed to profit from these problems while leaving apartments and estates unfit for purpose? Do you really think they're being altruistic, doing this to discourage excessive car ownership?

johnnyskeleton

benjamin d wrote: »

Sorry I have to comment on this. Have you ever actually BEEN to an apartment block, or practically any housing estate in the country? There are cars on the footpath, bike lanes, greens, alleys, shrubs, roads, cars littered absolutely everywhere. I think it's a disgrace that developers can get away with only providing one space per apartment when even the average one bed has two cars. Three bed apartments may have 4 or 5 cars to park. Even if public transport was decent in Dublin I'd still need a car for work or going back home etc, as would most people I'd imagine.

I live in a 600+ apartment complex in the city centre with less than 300 designated parking spots. About 25% of those spots are usually empty, and a significant number are rented out to people working in the area but not living there.

In reality, while you may need 2 or more parkin spots per apartment in outer suburbs, the better the access to the city the less parking spaces you need.

benjamin d

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

I live in a 600+ apartment complex in the city centre with less than 300 designated parking spots. About 25% of those spots are usually empty, and a significant number are rented out to people working in the area but not living there.

In reality, while you may need 2 or more parkin spots per apartment in outer suburbs, the better the access to the city the less parking spaces you need.

That may well be the way of it in the city centre, but my experience of outer city (inside M50) apartments and houses, and many regional towns and villages throughout the country was that parking is woefully inadequate. I only wish that there was good enough public transport to not need a car but that's sadly not the reality for most people outside city centres. While it's not up to developers to improve public transport, they shouldn't get a free pass from catering to reality either.
I'd imagine there are formulas used for calculating expected numbers of cars given available public transport options,distance to employment centres etc.?

Eric Cartman

the solution to the housing crisis without costing us extra on our already overinflated taxes, by eric cartman :

Social Housing :
1. No more social housing inside the M50, none of it, any developments that are falling apart should be emptied and the land sold to private developers and use the profits to build social housing elsewhere. There should be no circumstances in which somebody in a social house should be living anywhere that somebody on 50k a year could not afford. No more paying RA inside here either, similar for other cities such as cork, limerick and galway.

2. 1 rejection limit, if your'e on the housing list you can reject 1 property under the basis of condition, proximity to schools or no available play areas for kids etc.. No rejecting under the basis that the area is crappy or your'e not near your "support network" , working people have to sprawl to buy, you have to sprawl to get a free house.

3. Social housing should be built in mixed developments of 1, 2 and 3 bed apartments and semi detached houses. A development of 4, 5 + bed houses should not be expected to house social tenants. (To encourage the building of these other units, builders to be offered the ability to pay no tax on any profits from this, and to encourage private buyers no stamp duty or VAT payable on the house. A condition of this would be that the houses must come in at 220k or below for a 3 bed to comply with new mortgage rules for fib's

4. Construction of pre fabricated timber frame houses with at least an A3 rating and the government commission 3 designs that can be mass produced to reduce cost should be available for replacing social developments and extending current council estates.

private housing :
1. Allow building up to 20 storeys in dublin city centre.
2. Any development of apartments inside the M50 must include 20% of units priced under 220k.
3. Parking spaces must be 1 per 2 apartments inside the M50 and 1 per apartment outside the M50. These cannot be sold separately to the apartment at any time and in the case of rental lettings the tenant is entitled to first refusal on any parking spaces attached to the apartment. If there is no luas / bus that runs at least once an hour or train within 10 minutes walk from an apartment development the space requirement increases to 2 for 2 bed apartments

4. Local needs planning to be abolished and fair planning rules to be given to anybody desiring to build one off houses. Design guides/rules to be relaxed to allow the building of modern structures.

Victor

Eric Cartman wrote: »

No more social housing inside the M50

Welcome ghettoisation.

No rejecting under the basis that the area is crappy or your'e not near your "support network"

Welcome dysfunction.

To encourage the building of these other units, builders to be offered the ability to pay no tax on any profits from this, and to encourage private buyers no stamp duty or VAT payable on the house. A condition of this would be that the houses must come in at 220k or below for a 3 bed to comply with new mortgage rules for fib's

Welcome gaming of the system.

Any development of apartments inside the M50 must include 20% of units priced under 220k.

To be reserved for the developers' mates.

If there is no luas / bus that runs at least once an hour or train within 10 minutes walk from an apartment development the space requirement increases to 2 for 2 bed apartments

Welcome objections to public transport.

Local needs planning to be abolished and fair planning rules to be given to anybody desiring to build one off houses.

Letrim, only 3 hours from Dublin, the M50. One-off housing a is a drain on resources and a blight on society and the countryside.

I would abolish the unnecessarily relaxed local needs housing rules, by putting the housing where there are jobs, schools and services. This isn't down a boreen 10km from the nearest supermarket.

golfwallah

Dublin City Council have begun to make noises about compulsory purchase of derelict sites, according to this Irish Times article:

The council should take advantage of the recovery in the property market and use its compulsory purchase and derelict sites acquisition powers to buy property which it could either sell for market value or redevelop using strategic investment funding from Nama, Mr Keegan said.
The council could also enhance the value of sites and buildings, and make them more attractive to potential buyers, by bringing them to the point where they have the necessary permissions to allow redevelopment to go ahead.

However, talking about it and doing it are two different things. It will be interesting to watch developments over the coming months.

Iwasfrozen

A far better way of freeing up available affordable housing is to let the banks reposes homes that are behind on their mortgage. The state is not a party to a private contract between the buyer and the bank.

golfwallah

Iwasfrozen wrote: »

A far better way of freeing up available affordable housing is to let the banks reposes homes that are behind on their mortgage. The state is not a party to a private contract between the buyer and the bank.

Maybe - if we lived in a country governed purely by economics.

But we don't! We live in a democratic, political economy in which a balance has to be struck that is acceptable to the greater majority of citizens. And the de facto situation is that there are due processes for repossession and ultimate disposal of houses encumbered by mortgage arrears.

That being said, there is an upward trend in the numbers of repossessions and disposals as between the 2 years ended September 2015, as per the attached statistics extracted from reports published by the Central Bank.

These figures show a significant growth in the number of disposals from 834 to 1,798 and houses in possession of lenders from 2,027 to 2,682, with higher proportional increases in Buy to Lets (BTL) over Private Dwelling Houses (PDH).

Going from where we are to where you are proposing overnight would result in thousands of people being rendered homeless with all the political chaos that would inevitably bring with it.

newacc2015

benjamin d wrote: »

Sorry I have to comment on this. Have you ever actually BEEN to an apartment block, or practically any housing estate in the country? There are cars on the footpath, bike lanes, greens, alleys, shrubs, roads, cars littered absolutely everywhere. I think it's a disgrace that developers can get away with only providing one space per apartment when even the average one bed has two cars. Three bed apartments may have 4 or 5 cars to park. Even if public transport was decent in Dublin I'd still need a car for work or going back home etc, as would most people I'd imagine.

Depends on who rents the apartment. If it is a German in Google or a student in Trinity. Will they really want to spend several thousand a year on car insurance, depreciation, tax and maintenance on something they will never really use? There is no need to own a car in the city,as its so difficult to drive in the city with the congestion

I think if you own several cars in a household, it defects the purpose of living in a city centre apartment and you probably should live in a house in the suburbs. There is plenty of houses in the likes of Drumcondra/Phisboro where no owns a car. Its so close to the city, that it doesn't make sense.

If people choose to have a luxury of a car in Dublin City. Make them pay for it like you do in the likes of NYC. A pretty expensive car space would deter people from owning a car in the city, as there is no solid reason to own a car in it. There is no reason developers need to spend €20k-25k on a car space, as the residents might like to go home the odd time. The car space isnt free and results in higher apartment costs and higher rents.

riclad

I think the amount of people living in 3 bed apartments with 3 cars is very small,
Many people can live in the city centre in apartments ,
without using cars ,
use bus,taxi,luas etc
not every single person wants to have a car.
Changing the rules re the housing list is a waste of time ,
the problem is there s almost no social housing being built.
Most of the council house,s were sold off ,
except for council apartments where its not practical to do so .
What we need is x amount of social housing units built per year .
We need a 10 year housing plan .
In the 60,s , 70,s ,80s 1000,s of houses ,were built ,
IS there any will or intention by the fine gael,fianna fail, labour to do so again .
Maybe have 1 parking space for every two apartments .
We need to reduce the cost of building.

golfwallah

riclad wrote: »

I think the amount of people living in 3 bed apartments with 3 cars is very small,
Many people can live in the city centre in apartments ,
without using cars ,
use bus,taxi,luas etc
not every single person wants to have a car.
Changing the rules re the housing list is a waste of time ,
the problem is there s almost no social housing being built.
Most of the council house,s were sold off ,
except for council apartments where its not practical to do so .
What we need is x amount of social housing units built per year .
We need a 10 year housing plan .
In the 60,s , 70,s ,80s 1000,s of houses ,were built ,
IS there any will or intention by the fine gael,fianna fail, labour to do so again .
Maybe have 1 parking space for every two apartments .
We need to reduce the cost of building.

Agreed - most council build housing has been sold off and more social housing is now needed.

Problem is - who is going to pay for it?

Councils, following central government policy have abdicated their responsibilities for social housing and dumped them onto a combination of private developers and voluntary housing agencies.

The private developer model for provision of new social housing has stopped working, as they aren't building the required volumes any more. Councils are over-borrowed from buying up development land that they have no resources to fill up with completed houses and voluntary agencies are no longer being back-stopped by government guarantees on lending.

So where will all the money come from?

nice_guy80

Is there land to build 'houses' to solve the housing crisis though

We need to get away from the idea that apartments are not suitable for families
Properly designed apartment blocks, such as in Sweden with a variety of apartments and studio apartments, central heating and water systems and managed by the residents themselves do work and could work in Ireland, if done properly

The problem is that most stuff is built in Ireland to turn a profit

Villa05

nice_guy80 wrote: »

Is there land to build 'houses' to solve the housing crisis though?

Dublin is a small city by European standards. One of the most destructive features of the Bubble was the dispersion of the Dublin population north, south and particularly west, to towns and villages 60, 70 and 80 kilometres from the capital, from which the displaced Dubs could commute through the unzoned prairies closer to the city. There is enough unzoned land within 20 or 30 kilometres of Dublin to accommodate a megacity at modest densities. To this day, there are farms inside the M50, that is to say, within eight or nine kilometres of the city centre.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/colm-mccarthy/zoning-power-is-key-to-solving-housing-crisis-31283215.html

FreudianSlippers

Eric Cartman wrote: »

the solution to the housing crisis without costing us extra on our already overinflated taxes, by eric cartman :

Social Housing :
1. No more social housing inside the M50, none of it, any developments that are falling apart should be emptied and the land sold to private developers and use the profits to build social housing elsewhere. There should be no circumstances in which somebody in a social house should be living anywhere that somebody on 50k a year could not afford. No more paying RA inside here either, similar for other cities such as cork, limerick and galway.

Victor wrote: »

Welcome ghettoisation.

Presuming Eric means no additional social housing inside the M50, and we're not talking about only building social housing in a greenfield outside the M50, I don't see how one can jump to this conclusion.

I wouldn't go so far as to say "no additional" - the obvious solution is to grow the inside of the M50 up rather than out (not that there's anywhere left to go out) and ensure that there is a legislative and tax initiative to zone a certain percentage of new apartments as subsidised for those on lower but still some income.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

2. 1 rejection limit, if your'e on the housing list you can reject 1 property under the basis of condition, proximity to schools or no available play areas for kids etc.. No rejecting under the basis that the area is crappy or your'e not near your "support network" , working people have to sprawl to buy, you have to sprawl to get a free house.

Victor wrote: »

Welcome dysfunction.

Those not working don't have to worry about it and should live where they are offered housing.

Those working should be given more opportunity to live nearer their "support network" to ensure they remain in employment rather than being a drain on the State.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

3. Social housing should be built in mixed developments of 1, 2 and 3 bed apartments and semi detached houses. A development of 4, 5 + bed houses should not be expected to house social tenants. (To encourage the building of these other units, builders to be offered the ability to pay no tax on any profits from this, and to encourage private buyers no stamp duty or VAT payable on the house. A condition of this would be that the houses must come in at 220k or below for a 3 bed to comply with new mortgage rules for fib's

Agreed. We need to start building up inside the M50.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

4. Construction of pre fabricated timber frame houses with at least an A3 rating and the government commission 3 designs that can be mass produced to reduce cost should be available for replacing social developments and extending current council estates.

Agreed.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

private housing :
1. Allow building up to 20 storeys in dublin city centre.

In approved SDZs only.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

2. Any development of apartments inside the M50 must include 20% of units priced under 220k.

This can be (and has been in other cities in North America) achieved by offering tax incentives to the builders.

Eric Cartman wrote: »

4. Local needs planning to be abolished and fair planning rules to be given to anybody desiring to build one off houses. Design guides/rules to be relaxed to allow the building of modern structures.

Planning is a mess at the moment and the system of objections taking months/years is an absolute joke. We need a FULL overhaul of the planning system.

Silverbling

There is a lot of focus on social housing, what about people who have kids in schools in South Dublin, have lived in the same area for 30 years, when it used to be isolated apart from the odd bus?

The fact a luas and shopping centre has been built has affected the cost of rent, on 2 incomes you can just about manage but on 1 income it is impossible.

There are plenty of people who have worked all of their lives and want to keep on working but are faced with a stark choice, pull your leaving cert kid out of school and move somewhere you have never been to because the younger kids will adapt, give up work and go on the dole or face homelessness when your rent increases to an amount you can't afford

What is needed is an incentive to landlords to rent long term at affordable rents, in the area I live in these incentives would have to be well worth it for a landlord to be rent way below the market rate but working parents need help too when they are priced out of the rental market.

The next generation we are raising will be responsible for paying taxes and pensions in the future, no one in the government seems to be looking long term

Villa05

Social housing is for the increasing number of people families that cannot afford market rent or to buy. I think there is a misconception that social housing is for the unemployed only.

newacc2015

Villa05 wrote: »

Social housing is for the increasing number of people families that cannot afford market rent or to buy. I think there is a misconception that social housing is for the unemployed only.

I believe it is because social housing generally only goes to really low income or unemployed individuals. Whereas you can get affordable housing when you are middle to relatively high income in NYC and Boston. The cut off for a family of 4 in NYC is $142k a year. Even Jupiter in Florida has affordable housing for a family of 4 earning up to $78k a year (it is a really small city).

The threshold cut off for DCC is only €38,500 for a family of 4. That is basically just over the average industrial wage and not a huge income for a family of 4 in Dublin. The misconception is there, as the affordable housing is just too restrictive for 2 minimum wage earning household( with the new minimum wage a couple would not qualify for social housing)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/some-families-earn-six-figures-and-still-need-help-with-the-rent-1448996304

riclad

The rule now is you need at least one child to get social housing,
or else be on disability.
The chances of a single person under the age of 60 being offered a council flat now is zero .
Single people have to go on the housing list in order to claim rent allowance.
IN the last 6 months ,there were 20 social housing units ,built according to the sunday times .
Theres 100,s of people living in hotels because they can,t find private flats and theres ,
no vacant social housing for them .
Theres 100,s of empty council flats ,house,s but they have to be refurbished .

IF they government wants say 20,000 social housing units it,ll have to provide funds to the councils and housing charitys .
The government is planning to spend millions on finishing of the luas ,and the new transport link to dublin airport .

NAMA plans to build 20 thousand house,s on land it owns but these houses will be sold
to private companys probably to be rented out .

golfwallah

Let's look at a few facts as regards social housing:

On the demand side:

• in 2012, €954.8m was being spent annually on 136,000 public sector houses
• Table A1.1 - Net* Household Need 1993 – 2013
  Year Number of Households
  2013 89,872
  2011 98,318
  2008 56,249
  2005 42,946
  2002 48,413
  1999 39,176
  1996 27,427
  1993 28,200
  *Net Households excludes those already in social housing support and duplicate entries.
  
  Source: http://www.environ.ie/en/Publications/DevelopmentandHousing/Housing/FileDownLoad,34857,en.pdf

On the Supply Side, very little is being built by councils themselves, the private sector or voluntary housing agencies. Councils are borrowed to the hilt and have no money to make a significant impact in solving the social housing problem.

This has all the makings of a hot political issue in demand for urgent action / debate on real solutions coming up to the general election. Yet it doesn't seem to have emerged as a key issue as of yet!

Silverbling

newacc2015 wrote: »

I believe it is because social housing generally only goes to really low income or unemployed individuals. Whereas you can get affordable housing when you are middle to relatively high income in NYC and Boston. The cut off for a family of 4 in NYC is $142k a year. Even Jupiter in Florida has affordable housing for a family of 4 earning up to $78k a year (it is a really small city).

The threshold cut off for DCC is only €38,500 for a family of 4. That is basically just over the average industrial wage and not a huge income for a family of 4 in Dublin. The misconception is there, as the affordable housing is just too restrictive for 2 minimum wage earning household( with the new minimum wage a couple would not qualify for social housing)

http://www.wsj.com/articles/some-families-earn-six-figures-and-still-need-help-with-the-rent-1448996304

That is really interesting, on 1 income I can not afford the rent. The only reason I rent is because I can not get a mortgage yet the rents are higher than mortgages

What are people supposed to do if they can not get or afford a mortgage but are employed?

Personally I am looking for an affordable house not a social house but I think they fudged the issue by changing the wording from council house to social

Perhaps the government need to look at other countries to see if there is a solution because this crisis is getting bigger and bigger,

Most of the people I know are of a certain age, managed the 80's recession, grabbed the chance of divorce when it came in, lost money on pips and peps, owned a house we could afford but 1 partner not paying the mortgage brings it all crashing down

So you sell the house, pay your debts and rent while you carry on working

There is a solution to this but it is going to take somebody very clever who is not just looking at the political angle but at the long term future,

Silverbling

I found an article you do not have to sign on or subscribe to

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/housing-assistance-for-six-figure-families/

"Middle-class families making over $100,000 being offered assistance can seem shocking, but looking within these cities that tend to be more affluent, you aren't targeting the richest of the rich," said Sklyar Olsen, senior economist at housing data site Zillow. "They are on the upper side of the median, but not too far up."

The median income in Cambridge, for instance, is about 38 percent higher than the U.S. median, she said. The median rent list price for a two-bedroom apartment in Cambridge is now higher than in New York, where it's $2,600, according to Zillow.

riclad

we could do with more housing co ops, self build charity.
So people who are working ,build say 50 houses .
you sign a contract, to work x days per week, or x hours.
After working a certain time you have a house.
houses are built in basic simple designs to can be built by ordinary people supervised
by a small team of professional builders .
Some work is done by electricians ,plumbers ,
that is very specialized .
So in theory ,a person on a lower income who is working can get a house.
Houses are built on council owned land or land bought by a charity.
Any one can be trained to paint , tile or put up plasterboard ,or put down
floor boards in a short time.

http://hpbc.org.uk/

there was a grand designs program about this .

i think the land is owned by the charity or the council and
the residents pay a basic charge to cover repairs ,


The council in dublin is putting up temporary modular housing ,
each family unit costs 200k,

meanwhile theres 100 s of empty council houses and apartments that need
basic repairs ,painting etc
but the council have a limited staff to do repairs .

Go to many council housing estates 3-5 per cent of the units are boarded up ,empty .
if you bought a house before 1994 ,
the loan on it would be very small .

Since 2008 ,the government has not really had the money to invest in new social housing projects .

golfwallah

Riclad has made an interesting contribution on the subject of what more could be done by voluntary housing co-ops. It would, indeed be great to see more initiatives in this area and, even better, to see more leadership being provided by Government.

But let’s, for a moment, have a brief look at what is happening as regards such initiatives in the real world. According to Co-operative Housing Ireland

Since 1973 more than 3,500 co-operative dwellings for ownership have been developed and 1,800 rented homes continue to be managed by local co-operative societies.

That’s an average annual increase of about 83 units in the supply of new houses (set against a social housing need of 89,872 for 2013 (according to government statistics).

I’m not trying to be negative but what is happening right now, admirable and all as it is, is like trying to drain a large pond by the spoonful.

Also, let’s take a look at what our political leaders are doing. According to the latest government press release:

Environment Committee to conduct estimates review and consider policy directive on social housing
The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht will convene tomorrow to conduct a review of the 2015 Estimates for the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.
23rd November 2015

In attendance will be the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Alan Kelly TD, Minister of State with Special Responsibility for Housing, Planning and Coordination of the Construction 2020 Strategy, Paudie Coffey TD and Minister of State with Special Responsibility for Rural Economic Development issues, Ann Phelan TD.

The meeting will take place tomorrow, Tuesday, 24th November at 2.15 pm in Committee Room 4, Leinster House.

Don’t hold your breath – but then, maybe, we expect too much of our politicians – like that they should address the key issues of importance to the electorate (such as housing) in a more effective manner than they have been displaying for the last good number of years!

riclad

There,s only been about 20 social housing units built since june 2015 to january 2016 .
IF the councils were to give large sites of lands free to charity ,co ops who knows what might happen,
1000,s of people might build there own house,s if they were given the chance .
The charitys at present are supposed to be able to borrow money to buy land at the moment but the system is not working .
Does the government have the money to build say 10,000 houses ,
for social housing .
i have no idea .
Nama intends to build 20 thousand houses which will be sold off to private companys .

golfwallah

riclad wrote: »

There,s only been about 20 social housing units built since june 2015 to january 2016 .
IF the councils were to give large sites of lands free to charity ,co ops who knows what might happen,
1000,s of people might build there own house,s if they were given the chance .
The charitys at present are supposed to be able to borrow money to buy land at the moment but the system is not working .
Does the government have the money to build say 10,000 houses ,
for social housing .
i have no idea .
Nama intends to build 20 thousand houses which will be sold off to private companys .

There are a few big "mights" and a "supposed" there that need further exploration and ways to be found to make them work. As you say, the system isn't working.

My experience, serving as a board member for a voluntary housing agency, up until recently was that it was difficult to undertake new builds for a number of reasons, such as:

• Borrowing for building / development now had to be undertaken by the charity itself (without government guarantees) - real legal problems with collateral and personal financial risk to directors in the event of any future default
• Council land comes with conditions, which can cause difficulties in making deals / swaps, etc., with commercial developers
• Council can impose conditions (re inclusion of retail outlets, etc., even in areas where it is extremely difficult for inexperienced boards to find commercial tenants for such outlets)

This experience of taking on personal financial risk (not only for borrowing but for other reasons that come with running any organisation these days), whilst acting as a volunteer, brought me to the conclusion that councils and political leaders were merely dumping their responsibilities onto either volunteers or commercial developers, whilst hiding behind all the rules they had developed, ostensibly to protect the public, but also very conveniently to protect themselves from risks associated with developing and operating social housing.

macraignil

Maybe more people could live on boats. Living on barges is popular in Holland where they have experience of lots of water.

The issue that I think the politicians are not addressing in housing policy is reducing the cost of housing which in recent years has raised to an increasingly unaffordable ratio of income to price. The figures from a comparable situation in the UK give an explanation of the picture.

"In 1995, the median income in London was £19,000 and the median house price was £83,000, meaning that people were spending 4.4 times their income on buying a property. But by 2012-13, the median income in London had increased to £24,600 and the median house price in the capital had increased to £300,000, meaning people were forced to spend 12.2 times their income on a house."
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/sep/02/housing-market-gulf-salaries-house-prices

Unless costs of owning a home in Ireland are reduced many will be forced to rent indefinitely. When retiring they still might need to pay rent and in time this will become an increasing burden on state finances. By making housing cheaper now it could be a real long term benefit to the country. Building regulations and development charges and tax on housing should all be examined and changed to improve the current market so people working here can afford to have their own home.

golfwallah

As far as I can see the single biggest factor in provision of additional social housing is the availability of finance to get things moving from an almost zero starting position (set against a published need of approx. 90,000 units) – coupled, with the need to ensure that any such finance will be repaid over the long term.

This recent KPMG presentation on Social Housing Funding Models points towards the demand from private sector investors to be a part of the social housing solution – but there are challenges to be overcome (such as government / local authority guarantees and abilities of councils and voluntary agencies to maintain properties and ensure collection of rents).

Perhaps our political leaders would do well by taking on some of the issues outlined in this presentation (e.g. by prompting more visible public debate on the issues and what it will take to solve them)?

There’s also the availability of EU Funding (but apparently this has to be matched and is targeted at upgrading existing housing):

The €150m funding from the European Investment Bank will be matched by the HFA to provide €300m available for lending to support investment by Approved Housing Bodies across the country to upgrade social housing and improve energy efficiency. By accessing EIB funding the HFA will be able to offer Approved Housing Bodies long-term finance at extremely competitive rates. The new social housing development scheme is supported by a guarantee from the Minister for Finance and underpins the strong commitment from the EIB for the provision of long term development finance in Ireland.

There is a government plan – but visible progress towards making this a reality seems painfully slow and not well communicated to the general public:

The Social Housing Strategy 2020 targets the provision of 35,000 new social housing units over a six year period, the support of up to 75,000 households through an enhanced private rental sector and the reform of social housing supports to create a more flexible and responsive system. The Strategy sets out a multi-annual approach to underpin the delivery requirements over two phases. Phase 1, building on Budget 2015, sets a target of 18,000 additional housing units and 32,000 rented units by end 2017. Phase 2 sets a target of 17,000 additional housing units and 43,000 rented units by end 2020.

golfwallah

This is what social housing agency, Cluid, had to say about the budget 2016 announcement on social housing, last October:

*Most of the increase in social housing spending (€47.7m out of €69m) will be on Housing Assistance Payment. This is a subsidy paid to private landlords and is not social housing.

*The increase of €20m under the Social Housing Current Expenditure Programme claims to ensure the delivery of 3,000 new units. Since it is current spending, not capital spending, it is presumably allocated to leasing accommodation for social housing. However, €20m will only pay one year’s lease on 3,000 units (if that) so it’s difficult to see how it can be said to ‘ensure the delivery of 3,000 units in 2016’.

*Under the current Part V arrangements, Nama will be required to provide social housing for only 10% of the new 20,000 units. This is a major missed opportunity to achieve a much-needed social dividend from Nama. In Clúid’s view, Nama should be required to include 20% social housing and another 20% affordable rent to meet the needs of people who cannot afford to buy or pay market rents. This would provide 8000 affordable homes, four times as many as the 2000 that will be provided under current Part V arrangements.

*Mortgage-to-Rent scheme – The problem is not money. The problem is the banks who are not taking Mortgage-to-Rent seriously. Until that issue is addressed extra money will make very little difference.

FreudianSlippers

golfwallah wrote: »

There’s also the availability of EU Funding (but apparently this has to be matched and is targeted at upgrading existing housing):

IMHO we could use this and we could afford this. Looking at some of the council estates, there are many which are empty because they are not fit-for-purpose.

€150m matched funding would go a long way to repairing our housing stock. It's not going to solve our problem, but it would certainly be helpful for a relatively minor amount of money.

Bass Reeves

The question is why have we a housing crisis. it is not just a social housing crisis. Even in rural area's within 20 miles of city's or adjacent to large towns minimum rents are 500+/month. In the last 8 years very few houses were build. As well building regulations and health and safety have made it impossible to self build or renovate run down building. Planning costs are horrendus.

Even if we solve all that who will build the houses unemployment is at 8ish%. Even if the government is cooking the figures a bit we still have an unemployment figure of around 10%. There were virtually no one trained in the building trades over the last 8 years. Most skilled trades people are working on small renovation projects are big office/government projects at present.

Will large non national construction companies manage to do these sort of projects any cheaper than Irish developers?. Looking at councils and govern social housing purchasing housing is not an option these have to be upgrades to present building standards. In regeneration projects houses purchased had to be revamped with window's replaced in bedrooms to conform to fire safety regs and internal redecoration.

In Ireland we do renting badly, there is no onus on the tenant to maintain the property this adds cost to landlords. Cannot see larger insurance companies/housing agency's managing to be any cheaper or better than small landlords.

We need to reduce planning and regulation costs to make building and renovation cheaper. In the early noughties there was a use it or tax it clause on development land. This was structured that if you did not dispose a site in 2-3 years that you did not intent to develop there was a higher rate of CG tax on it. This was removed 2002 or 2003 budget. As well the social housing element of developments was watered down with councils taking the money instead.

Building large amounts of social housing in single large amounts will mean getto's in 20 years time. There is no easy answer and the law of intended conquences will come into play.

The reality is there will be no cheap houses for the ordinary punters and rents will increase for next 10 years.

Zubeneschamali

Bass Reeves wrote: »

The question is why have we a housing crisis. it is not just a social housing crisis. Even in rural area's within 20 miles of city's or adjacent to large towns minimum rents are 500+/month. In the last 8 years very few houses were build. As well building regulations and health and safety have made it impossible to self build or renovate run down building. Planning costs are horrendus.

Because we had 10 years and more of unplanned, unregulated, uninspected cowboy building which gave us ghost estates on flood plains, apartment blocks of rabbit hutches in breach of fire regs, and all the other disasters you have read about.

And then a huge crash which took out nearly every firm capable of building anything.

Of course there are continuing problems.

theflipdave

Totally true

golfwallah

I fully agree with the point that we don't have only a social housing problem - the problem covers all sectors of housing.

And yes, it looks like a huge unsurmountable problem for many people now looking for a basic home that they can afford, is not too far from where they work and in a good area of their choosing. There's also the downstream effects of a growing number of people in rented accommodation as to what happens to them when they retire on reduced fixed incomes.

It's all to easy to regard the situation as depressing, with politicians in power presenting themselves as the only alternative for stable government. They are over-egging the pudding as regards their contribution to the "recovery" and grossly under representing the mess that's been made of making housing affordable to a citizen on a reasonable wage. They also seem content with a policy of only reacting, with half baked, hurriedly prepared solutions, to long existing situations, after they have been highlighted on TV.

Surely they can't regard the housing crisis as a form of stability?

Now that the elections are nigh, politicians of all varieties (government and opposition) are putting forward solutions in the form of building programmes - that may or may not be affordable.

Why do we have to leave it until we have a huge crisis before even beginning to tackle the issues involved, which are multi factorial?

Thankfully I have my own home and when I entered the housing market many years ago, people of average or slightly above average income could afford (with a bit of difficulty for a few years) afford to buy a home. Regretfully, the same can't be said today (e.g. an average semi in a good area in Dublin costs as much as a good sized beach front house in California).

We need lots of initiatives and lots of lateral thinking to make housing affordable again (plus the courage to take on those with vested interests in keeping the status quo). I don't pretend to have all the answers but would like to see a lot more progress being made on this most basic need for our citizens.

Here's a couple of links demonstrating what can be done:
Smaller Houses Initiative in Canada and Sustainable Housing in the UK.

golfwallah

The Society of Chartered Surveyors in Ireland lists the following as the major factors affecting housing supply:
• Availability and cost of land
• Availability and cost of credit
• Availability and cost of skilled labour, materials, etc.
• Availability and cost of infrastructure provision
• Planning constraints and building regulations

Their 10 step strategy to address the housing supply shortage includes, amongst others, streamlining the planning process plus reduction in development contributions, VAT and windfall tax. It is possible for Government to act on such issues, so why the inertia? Does “stability” = “Do nothing about upsetting vested interests and let economic growth take care of everything”?

And “vested interests” is not solely limited to those with monetary gains or losses to consider. It also includes guardians of other “sacred cows”, such as “no high rise” or other practical ways to increase housing supply at affordable cost.

If you think about it, there are lots of ways of removing barriers to housing supply. The rub is that that solutions come with the task of upsetting and managing vested interests – and this costs votes.

To my mind, problems such as these are solvable. The price to pay is openness, informed public debate, decision on the choices available and then determined political action to deliver on the choices made. But maybe that is being too rational about the level of political debate in Ireland? It’s far easier, I guess, to fall back on self-interest, hype, spin, slogan and the blame game than to expect “grown up” behaviour from our politicians.

Bass Reeves

golfwallah wrote: »

The Society of Chartered Surveyors in Ireland lists the following as the major factors affecting housing supply:
• Availability and cost of land
• Availability and cost of credit
• Availability and cost of skilled labour, materials, etc.
• Availability and cost of infrastructure provision
• Planning constraints and building regulations

Their 10 step strategy to address the housing supply shortage includes, amongst others, streamlining the planning process plus reduction in development contributions, VAT and windfall tax. It is possible for Government to act on such issues, so why the inertia? Does “stability” = “Do nothing about upsetting vested interests and let economic growth take care of everything”?

And “vested interests” is not solely limited to those with monetary gains or losses to consider. It also includes guardians of other “sacred cows”, such as “no high rise” or other practical ways to increase housing supply at affordable cost.

If you think about it, there are lots of ways of removing barriers to housing supply. The rub is that that solutions come with the task of upsetting and managing vested interests – and this costs votes.

To my mind, problems such as these are solvable. The price to pay is openness, informed public debate, decision on the choices available and then determined political action to deliver on the choices made. But maybe that is being too rational about the level of political debate in Ireland? It’s far easier, I guess, to fall back on self-interest, hype, spin, slogan and the blame game than to expect “grown up” behaviour from our politicians.

Looking at there list one by one

Availability of land/site. The real issue here is hording and capital gains. Sites tend to go up in value over time so people who own sites tend not to sell unless they need the money. Why sell a site that may be increasing in value by 5-10%/annum when you will lose 33% in CG and 1-2% from a bank for the money. The way to increase availability is a bring capital gains down to 20% and when land is zoned or changes owner the owners has 2 years to develop or move it on, after that CG increases by 2%/annum. to a max of 50%. Also bring in a unused/derelict site tax of 2%/year. You could have protections for where a sit/land is in genuine agri-use.

Over the last 5 years we have virtually left the bank charge what they like in interest rates. This has created issues right across the economy. Unsecured money is costing 6-10% and secured money is costing about 4%+ in a time where money is free from the EU.Bank have delegated there duty of accessing loans and are using a large margin gap in lending to create a low risk banking envoirment.

Skilled labour is scarce this is due to a number of issue no trades people trained over last 8 years. The cost associated with training is part of the issue and also we have created a culture for young people where it is considered a rite of passage to go to college. Second level schools do not encourage those of middleing academic ability to look at trades. Instead at present they are pointed towards what are often meaningless PLC and arts courses.

Not sure if we need much infrastructure changes. In reality we have a lot of derelict sites not developed in most city's.

Planning and regulation is a real issue. It is nearly impossible for any ordinary Joe Soap to contemplate carrying out any sort of building at present. A solicitor will nearly tell you that if you are doing a garden shed you would need PL cover. We still have not got to grips with the legal costs/profession.. We can just about forget about planning and dealing with red tape issues's these are minefields created by bureaucrats. It is crazy if you wanted to dispose of an out of date Asprin (and it is still perfect to use) you would have to contract in a chemical disposal company.

golfwallah

For clarity as regards infrastructure funding, the SCSI report states:

A significant barrier to unlocking supply of residential homes is the requirement to fund infrastructure in advance of the development being completed. In the current environment, there are fiscal constraints on developers in financing upfront infrastructure. This is problematic and leads to delays in completion of developments. There are also situations whereby funding for the delivery of a piece of local infrastructure is required by a number of landowners/developers (i.e. a traffic calming measures or roundabouts) but the developers may be at different stages of development or even insolvent. This means that the local piece of infrastructure cannot be financed and thus the development which is ready cannot be completed. Therefore, there is a requirement for a mechanism to assist with the funding of pieces of local infrastructure up front to speed up the delivery of housing (and commercial projects).

To help resolve this issue, the SCSI recommend:

that the possibility of a Revolving Infrastructure Fund (RIF) being established in Ireland by Government and funded by the European Investment Bank (EIB) to provide upfront funding for the completion of local infrastructure projects in strategic areas to unlock development land for completion.

Another more general problem area is funding of water infrastructure, for which the Irish Water Capital Budget has been reduced and spread over many more years than was originally envisaged to bring capacity for water provision and waste treatment up to modern standards.