Cuffe backs demolition of some 'ghost' estates...
NEW GREEN Party Minister of State for the Environment Ciarán Cuffe yesterday said the blame for unfinished, or “ghost” housing estates lay with “the ‘cargo cult’ of rezoning for all the wrong reasons” that drove development in recent years.
In his first major speech since taking office last month Mr Cuffe said “selective demolitions will be a necessary part of the tasks required to tackle the legacy of one of the more unsavoury aspects of Ireland’s building boom”.
Addressing the annual conference of the Irish Planning Institute (IPI) in Tullamore, Co Offaly, he said: “I have no doubt that some loans that will come into the possession of the Nama will result in the demolition of badly designed buildings in inappropriate locations.”
But demolition would not be the only option.
“We now have to look quite realistically at the future use of unfinished estates and the needs of residents . . . It’s not as simple as sending in a bulldozer. That would happen in cases where there are significant health and safety issues,” Mr Cuffe said.
Nama’s new planning committee, which holds its first meeting today “will have a key role in this”.
Local authorities would also have “a strong role to play”, even in cases where Nama was involved, and so would the Department of the Environment.
He told planners that a team from the department would determine just how many unfinished housing estates there are. “We don’t yet have a clear figure, but hope to have that by the end of the summer,” he said.
As a “signed-up member of the institute” and former lecturer in urban planning, Mr Cuffe said his new role as Minister of State with special responsibility for planning, horticulture and sustainable travel “affords me an exciting opportunity to improve and enhance our planning system from within”.
IPI president Gerry Sheeran, in his opening address to the conference, said it was vital the advice of planners was “not ignored, as happened in the past” with the overzoning of land, which had led to the proliferation of unfinished housing estates.
“Decisions of councils to zone large amounts of lands, which in many cases were multiples of the development land required for the projected population, may have been seen at the time as benign and without negative consequences in the booming economy – but there are victims.
“These victims are those living in unfinished housing estates or those housed on land zoned in floodplains. The overzoning was not done in the interest of the common good but for sectoral interests, such as landowners and developers, and frequently against the advice of professional planners.”
Nama presented an opportunity for a plan-led rather than developer-led approach and should not be “driven by seeking the best return possible as had been the case during the boom.”
“Indeed, good planning can increase the value of land by achieving a better use mix or by providing public infrastructure such as public transport or can ensure the provision of social infrastructure such as schools, community facilities, parks and social housing in a timely and coherent fashion,” Mr Sheeran said.
Referring to recent flooding around the country, he said while climate change was playing a part, man-made interventions were also to blame – damage to bogs, short-sighted river drainage schemes, modern forestry techniques, large areas of Tarmac and concrete and the zoning of land in floodplains.
“The skills and talents of planners are essential to ensuring that we develop more sustainable, attractive and cohesive communities to live in, adopt more sustainable methods of travelling, build strong and vibrant town centres, address the issue of declining rural areas and enhance and protect our built and natural heritage.”
Costly Development Expert Outlines Problems Of One-off Housing Surge
ONE-OFF houses accounted for 46 per cent of the reduced national output of housing last year. But in some rural counties, mainly in the west, the proportion was much higher, according to an analysis by James Nix, of the Irish Environmental Network.
At the Irish Planning Institute’s annual conference in Tullamore, Co Offaly, he said one-off houses accounted for 80 per cent in Co Galway, followed by Kilkenny and Mayo (75 per cent), Leitrim (74 per cent), Roscommon (73 per cent) and Monaghan (71 per cent).
The fact that one-off houses accounted for almost half of the housing output nationally was due to the recent sharp drop in construction of scheme houses and apartments, rather than because of any surge in the building of one-offs, he explained.
Construction of apartments and scheme housing has plummeted, from 50,000 in the peak year of 2006 to less than 10,000 in 2009. The comparable figures for one-off houses were 22,800 in 2006, down to 12,000 of the total output of 26,400 units in 2009.
“While a small number of these homes will have been constructed near schools, shops and workplaces, the overwhelming majority are distant from services,” Mr Nix said. Since 2004, he estimated that it had cost “well over €1 billion” to provide them with services.
“This figure includes an additional €120 million on postal services and some €720 million on school transport. Other areas with substantially higher costs include road maintenance, bin collection, electricity and phone connections,” he told 150 planners at the conference.
Now, an increasing share of our housing output was more expensive to serve. “The slump in completions brings into view a key question for the 2010 to 2020 period: are close to half of all homes built in Ireland in the coming years going to be one-off?” he asked.
“Ireland’s competitiveness is being steadily eroded by the continued development of a pattern of housing which is particularly energy intensive,” Mr Nix warned the planners. “As oil prices rise, this cost burden will become ever more apparent.
“Put simply, unless dispersed development is restrained, councils will have to devote a disproportionate amount of their revenue on road maintenance, while bin collection and other council-provided services will also be more expensive,” he said.
This could be overcome by replacing stamp duty with a site value tax, as proposed in the revised Government programme. Such a tax would not only raise funds for cash-starved councils but would also act as a disincentive to hoarding land, he said.
Report by FRANK McDONALD - Irish Times
NEW GREEN Party Minister of State for the Environment Ciarán Cuffe yesterday said the blame for unfinished, or “ghost” housing estates lay with “the ‘cargo cult’ of rezoning for all the wrong reasons” that drove development in recent years.
In his first major speech since taking office last month Mr Cuffe said “selective demolitions will be a necessary part of the tasks required to tackle the legacy of one of the more unsavoury aspects of Ireland’s building boom”.
Addressing the annual conference of the Irish Planning Institute (IPI) in Tullamore, Co Offaly, he said: “I have no doubt that some loans that will come into the possession of the Nama will result in the demolition of badly designed buildings in inappropriate locations.”
But demolition would not be the only option.
“We now have to look quite realistically at the future use of unfinished estates and the needs of residents . . . It’s not as simple as sending in a bulldozer. That would happen in cases where there are significant health and safety issues,” Mr Cuffe said.
Nama’s new planning committee, which holds its first meeting today “will have a key role in this”.
Local authorities would also have “a strong role to play”, even in cases where Nama was involved, and so would the Department of the Environment.
He told planners that a team from the department would determine just how many unfinished housing estates there are. “We don’t yet have a clear figure, but hope to have that by the end of the summer,” he said.
As a “signed-up member of the institute” and former lecturer in urban planning, Mr Cuffe said his new role as Minister of State with special responsibility for planning, horticulture and sustainable travel “affords me an exciting opportunity to improve and enhance our planning system from within”.
IPI president Gerry Sheeran, in his opening address to the conference, said it was vital the advice of planners was “not ignored, as happened in the past” with the overzoning of land, which had led to the proliferation of unfinished housing estates.
“Decisions of councils to zone large amounts of lands, which in many cases were multiples of the development land required for the projected population, may have been seen at the time as benign and without negative consequences in the booming economy – but there are victims.
“These victims are those living in unfinished housing estates or those housed on land zoned in floodplains. The overzoning was not done in the interest of the common good but for sectoral interests, such as landowners and developers, and frequently against the advice of professional planners.”
Nama presented an opportunity for a plan-led rather than developer-led approach and should not be “driven by seeking the best return possible as had been the case during the boom.”
“Indeed, good planning can increase the value of land by achieving a better use mix or by providing public infrastructure such as public transport or can ensure the provision of social infrastructure such as schools, community facilities, parks and social housing in a timely and coherent fashion,” Mr Sheeran said.
Referring to recent flooding around the country, he said while climate change was playing a part, man-made interventions were also to blame – damage to bogs, short-sighted river drainage schemes, modern forestry techniques, large areas of Tarmac and concrete and the zoning of land in floodplains.
“The skills and talents of planners are essential to ensuring that we develop more sustainable, attractive and cohesive communities to live in, adopt more sustainable methods of travelling, build strong and vibrant town centres, address the issue of declining rural areas and enhance and protect our built and natural heritage.”
Costly Development Expert Outlines Problems Of One-off Housing Surge
ONE-OFF houses accounted for 46 per cent of the reduced national output of housing last year. But in some rural counties, mainly in the west, the proportion was much higher, according to an analysis by James Nix, of the Irish Environmental Network.
At the Irish Planning Institute’s annual conference in Tullamore, Co Offaly, he said one-off houses accounted for 80 per cent in Co Galway, followed by Kilkenny and Mayo (75 per cent), Leitrim (74 per cent), Roscommon (73 per cent) and Monaghan (71 per cent).
The fact that one-off houses accounted for almost half of the housing output nationally was due to the recent sharp drop in construction of scheme houses and apartments, rather than because of any surge in the building of one-offs, he explained.
Construction of apartments and scheme housing has plummeted, from 50,000 in the peak year of 2006 to less than 10,000 in 2009. The comparable figures for one-off houses were 22,800 in 2006, down to 12,000 of the total output of 26,400 units in 2009.
“While a small number of these homes will have been constructed near schools, shops and workplaces, the overwhelming majority are distant from services,” Mr Nix said. Since 2004, he estimated that it had cost “well over €1 billion” to provide them with services.
“This figure includes an additional €120 million on postal services and some €720 million on school transport. Other areas with substantially higher costs include road maintenance, bin collection, electricity and phone connections,” he told 150 planners at the conference.
Now, an increasing share of our housing output was more expensive to serve. “The slump in completions brings into view a key question for the 2010 to 2020 period: are close to half of all homes built in Ireland in the coming years going to be one-off?” he asked.
“Ireland’s competitiveness is being steadily eroded by the continued development of a pattern of housing which is particularly energy intensive,” Mr Nix warned the planners. “As oil prices rise, this cost burden will become ever more apparent.
“Put simply, unless dispersed development is restrained, councils will have to devote a disproportionate amount of their revenue on road maintenance, while bin collection and other council-provided services will also be more expensive,” he said.
This could be overcome by replacing stamp duty with a site value tax, as proposed in the revised Government programme. Such a tax would not only raise funds for cash-starved councils but would also act as a disincentive to hoarding land, he said.
Report by FRANK McDONALD - Irish Times