Skip to main content

Huge Bill For Taxpayer...

Building ban on rezoned land leaves taxpayer with huge bill...

THE taxpayer will be forced to pick up the tab as councils ban housing on massive banks of land -- bought for billions by property speculators at the height of the boom.

The value of development sites has plummeted by more than 90pc, after councils rezoned land which is no longer needed for housing.

The Irish Independent has learned that 12 of the country's 34 local authorities have already dezoned or banned development on lands. The remainder will do so by the end of the year, under a radical shake-up of planning system countrywide.

But the move will have serious implications for taxpayers. Banks lent billions for speculative deals on those lands which have since collapsed -- with the State now forced to pick up the bill. Housing will now no longer be allowed to be built on 8,000 hectares previously earmarked for development in 12 local authorities alone.

At the height of the boom, this land could have sold for more than €1m per hectare. However, after rezoning the average value is likely to be just €25,000 a hectare, informed sources said.

The findings provide the first indications of the extent of the zoning madness rubberstamped by councils over the last decade.

Many of the local authorities were controlled by Fine Gael, the main government party now tasked with cleaning up the mess.

At the height of the boom, around 44,000 hectares of land -- enough to build more than one million homes -- was zoned as suitable for housing.

This was almost 32,000 hectares more than needed.

House prices continued to soar, despite the oversupply, with landbanks swapping for huge sums. In practice, many of these landbanks were swapped from owner to owner, with nothing built. Now local authorities have been ordered to rationalise their planning policy -- identifying where there are needless landbanks, and dealing with them by rezoning.

The massive shake-up does bring some good news for thousands of homeowners living in ghost estates because these developments will have to be completed before planning permission is granted for new units.

But it will also have a negative impact on the taxpayer. Every loan over €20m goes into NAMA, meaning that hundreds of devalued sites are now controlled by the 'bad bank'. About 18pc of the €73bn in NAMA loans are connected to land.

A NAMA spokesman said these loans had been substantially written-down when they were taken over, some by as much as 90pc.

The new figures show:

?a total of 12 councils had 14,000 hectares of land available for housing two years ago; l Under the new plans, there are just 5,800 hectares;

?Laois now has 273 hectares of land for housing, down from 2,235 hectares two years ago;

?Sligo County Council reduced its landbank from 350 hectares to 195;

?Other councils to have re-zoned are Fingal, Clare, North Tipperary, South Tipperary, South Dublin, Wicklow, Galway City, Dublin City, Kildare and Cork City.

Report by Paul Melia - Irish Independent

Popular posts from this blog

Ireland's Celtic Tiger Excesses...

'Bang twins' may never get to run a business again... POST-boom Ireland is awash with cautionary tales of Celtic Tiger excesses, as a rattle around the carcasses of fallen property developers and entrepreneurs will show. Few can compete with the so-called Bang twins for youth, glamour and tasteful extravagance. Simon and Christian Stokes, the 35-year-old identical twins behind Bang Cafe and exclusive private members club, Residence, saw their entire business go bust with debts of €9m, €3m of which is owed to the tax man. The debt may be in the ha'penny place compared with the eye-watering billions owed by some of their former customers. But their fall has been arguably steeper and more damning than some of the country's richest tycoons. Last week, further humiliation was heaped on them with revelations that even as their businesses were going under, the twins spent €146,000 of company money in 18 months on designer shopping sprees, five star holidays and sumptu

I fear a very different kind of property crash

While 80% of people over 40 own their own home just a third of adults under 40 do. This is disastrous for social solidarity and cohesion Changing this system of policymaking requires a government to act in a way that may be uncomfortable for some. Governments have a horizon of no more than five years, and the housing issue requires long-term planning. The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform was intended to tackle some of these problems. According to its website its remit is to “drive the delivery of better public services, living standards and infrastructure for the people of Ireland by enhancing governance, building capacity and delivering effectively”. So how is the challenge of delivering homes for people in 2024 and beyond going to be met? The extent of the problem is visible in the move by companies, including Ryanair, to buy properties to house staff. Ryanair has, justifiably, defended its right to do so. IPAV has long articulated its views on how to improve supply an

Property Tycoon's Dolce Vita Ends...

Tycoon's dolce vita ends as art seized... THE Dublin city sheriff has seized an art collection and other valuables from the Ailesbury Road home of fallen property developer Bernard McNamara. The collection will be sold to help pay his debts. The sheriff, Brendan Walsh, is believed to have moved against the property developer within the past fortnight, calling to his salubrious Dublin 4 home acting on a court order to seize anything of value from his home to reimburse his creditors. The sheriff is believed to have taken paintings from the family home along with a small number of other items. The development marks a new low for Mr McNamara, once one of Ireland's richest men but who now owes €1.5bn . The property developer and former county councillor from Clare turned the building firm founded by his father Michael into one of the biggest in Ireland. He is the highest-profile former tycoon to date to be targeted by bailiffs, signalling just how far some of Ireland's billionai