Ocualann Co-op in Poppintree

Dublinguy007

Has anyone moved into these yet? How are they getting on? Looks like a great scheme.

Gumbo

Dublinguy007 wrote: »

Has anyone moved into these yet? How are they getting on? Looks like a great scheme.

Only 5 houses completed so far so I'd guess you'll struggle to get on the ground insight into them.

Unless of course you have any construction or technical questions, I've been in them all at various stages during their construction.

Dublinguy007

kceire wrote: »

Only 5 houses completed so far so I'd guess you'll struggle to get on the ground insight into them.

Unless of course you have any construction or technical questions, I've been in them all at various stages during their construction.

Were you involved in building them? Are they built well? It's great to see houses can be built without costing an arm and a leg.

Gumbo

Dublinguy007 wrote: »

Were you involved in building them? Are they built well? It's great to see houses can be built without costing an arm and a leg.

The only reason they are cheaper is because the city council donated the land at 1k per dwelling instead of 30k plus. And they waived all levies that would have added at least another 10k per house.

A lot of people giving out about why the council can't build etc but they are actively doing things in the back ground, just like this scheme.

Sleepy

Could the council afford to do this on a larger scale? I suspect not. Each of the lucky buyers in this scheme has effectively been handed 40k plus of taxpayers money.

Gumbo

Sleepy wrote: »

Could the council afford to do this on a larger scale? I suspect not. Each of the lucky buyers in this scheme has effectively been handed 40k plus of taxpayers money.

I doubt the funding would be there for them to do it.

Dublinguy007

Is the build quality the same level as you'd find in more expensive houses?
I can't post a picture but I saw that there is some sort of metal girder above and beside the front doors on the houses, is that a design feature or are they planning to remove them?

Sleepy

kceire wrote: »

I doubt the funding would be there for them to do it.

Pretty much my point. It's an expensive PR stunt that a small handful benefit greatly from. Nothing to be celebrated imo.

Gumbo

Dublinguy007 wrote: »

Is the build quality the same level as you'd find in more expensive houses?
I can't post a picture but I saw that there is some sort of metal girder above and beside the front doors on the houses, is that a design feature or are they planning to remove them?

Yes, full rigours of building regulation compliance, Solar PV, water butts, air tightness and ventilation systems.

The steel beams are a galvanised section and part of the architects design, they are not an exposed structural element.

Gumbo

Sleepy wrote: »

Pretty much my point. It's an expensive PR stunt that a small handful benefit greatly from. Nothing to be celebrated imo.

Local people get to purchase homes in the area that they otherwise cannot afford. These are funded through bank mortgages, owned by the people so yes, I think it is something to celebrate. The modern version of the affordable housing scheme.

The Peter Mc Verry trust are doing the same thing across the city, yet he gets praised.

Dublinguy007

kceire wrote: »

Yes, full rigours of building regulation compliance, Solar PV, water butts, air tightness and ventilation systems.

The steel beams are a galvanised section and part of the architects design, they are not an exposed structural element.

Really? That's interesting. They look to me like they would just collect dirt/mould and possible rust from being exposed to the elements but I'm the first to admit I know nothing about building. So it's purely an aesthetic feature?

Dublinguy007

kceire wrote: »

Local people get to purchase homes in the area that they otherwise cannot afford. These are funded through bank mortgages, owned by the people so yes, I think it is something to celebrate. The modern version of the affordable housing scheme.

The Peter Mc Verry trust are doing the same thing across the city, yet he gets praised.

I agree. The land beside it has been vacant for ages and now they're planning on building more homes there. It'll keep/bring money back into the area.

Gumbo

Dublinguy007 wrote: »

Really? That's interesting. They look to me like they would just collect dirt/mould and possible rust from being exposed to the elements but I'm the first to admit I know nothing about building. So it's purely an aesthetic feature?

Birds nesting might be an issue but the home owner should keep an eye on it and ensure t doesn't happen. Won't degrade as they are galvanised.

Sleepy

kceire wrote: »

Local people get to purchase homes in the area that they otherwise cannot afford. These are funded through bank mortgages, owned by the people so yes, I think it is something to celebrate. The modern version of the affordable housing scheme.

A very small number of local people get gifted taxpayers money in a scheme the council could never afford to open to all and one that other councils couldn't afford in the first place.

Perhaps if the council weren't indulging in such vanity projects they could afford to reduce the levies they place on all developments in their boundaries bringing the costs of develpment down and increasing supply? It could even be limited to houses below a certain size / market price.

Cherry picking small numbers of citizens to receive generous state hand-outs is a terrible strategy and one highly susceptible to corruption.

The Peter Mc Verry trust are doing the same thing across the city, yet he gets praised.

Are they doing it with taxpayers money? I'm not sure how universal the praise is for Peter McVerry either TBH. I've often heard him talking nonsense on Newstalk. His good intentions would seem beyond reproach but his opinions certainly aren't.

LirW

The scheme was open to all people, everyone could apply. It happened that a lot of people im the area decided to buy there, but there is also a good percentage from people with no ties to the area.

I know that you, Sleepy, are very hostile against this project, because you throw the term taxpayers money around a lot. That's right because you are entitled to your opinion.
However there is land in this area of Ballymun, this has no demand and if someone would lash am estate there where houses are 3-400k, they'd sit on them forever because nobody would buy them. The council knows this very well.
I think it makes a lot of sense giving land for projects like this one to builders using it for this scheme. A lot better than creating a social housing ghetto once again. At least something is being build and the very squeezed lower middle and working class can benefit from that. I don't see the wrong here and I'd prefer seeing a project like this at the grounds on Cappagh road where the church will be demolished and social housing apartments apartments are due to be build. That in the end costs the taxpayer a lot more harvesting a ghetto than helping people standing on their own feet in the long run.

Gumbo

Sleepy wrote: »

Perhaps if the council weren't indulging in such vanity projects they could afford to reduce the levies they place on all developments in their boundaries bringing the costs of develpment down and increasing supply? It could even be limited to houses below a certain size / market price.

Which projects are these?

Sleepy wrote: »

Are they doing it with taxpayers money? I'm not sure how universal the praise is for Peter McVerry either TBH. I've often heard him talking nonsense on Newstalk. His good intentions would seem beyond reproach but his opinions certainly aren't.

Yes, take St. Agathas court in dublin 1 for example. All over the media last month and the Mc Verry trust gettingnso much praise. But nothing about the fact that the council gift or very lightly sell the existing council flats there in order for the trust to renovate, add new units and house people.

Sleepy

I'm hostile to the project because it's a bad project. It's a vanity scheme that will allow a few councillors to appear to be doing something about the housing crisis whilst grossly mismanaging the resources they have at their disposal to actually do so.

This project handed 40-50 thousand euros to a small number of individuals. That's not acceptable. Or repeatable - the council cannot afford to scale this project.

Had the council contracted the development of this estate themselves, held onto 7 of the finished units for social housing and sold the remaining 42 with a margin that would cover the development costs of all 49 units, it would have been repeatable on other council lands as well as resulting in the state, rather than private individuals being the beneficiaries of the investment of public monies.

Looking at the figures in the article below, depending on the numbers of each type of unit being built, asking prices would be more in the range of 160 - 240k (well within the bounds of affordable housing in Dublin and comparing favourably to the only property on Daft at present for the area (a 70's or 80's 3 bed semi-d with an E2 BER rating asking 185k).

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/housing-co-op-offers-four-bed-homes-below-200-000-1.2675882

Sleepy

kceire wrote: »

Which projects are these?

This one. It's a vanity project.

Yes, take St. Agathas court in dublin 1 for example. All over the media last month and the Mc Verry trust gettingnso much praise. But nothing about the fact that the council gift or very lightly sell the existing council flats there in order for the trust to renovate, add new units and house people.

I didn't hear anything about that one tbh. Just googled it and from what I can see the units remain in use as social housing after the renovations? So not exactly comparable to this project where private individuals are the principal beneficiaries.

LirW

Okay I see what you mean and I have to agree to a certain point.
That's one side of it though, the other side is what reaches the end user. The people moving there are still paying for these houses and this to a lot of them are life savings and mortgages. They are bound to the house due to the clawback for ten years. Nobody knows how the market will be in 10 years time, they might never get the money back, location still could be difficult to sell. It sounds nice on paper but primarily these are family homes and aren't the greatest investment objects.
Under the line the buyer doesn't care about this, they want to house their family and make ends meet.

Don't hate the player, hate the game: why the council isn't following the idea you come up with is a good question. But in the end people on lower wages find something without having to commute ages. Again, these are sites that aren't interesting for the conventional builder due to location. Should it lie idle or should it be used for housing the people that earn lower wages (which also prevents the forming of yet another ghetto because private units are built)?

Sleepy

Oh I've no problem with those buying in this development. Fair play to them, they won the lottery.

It's the council supporting such waste and the media fawning over it instead of challenging it that pisses me off.

EDIT: BTW, the clawback is nowhere near as strong a tie as you might imagine if the article I linked was correct: it's capped at 30k.

A first time buyer gets to buy a 3 bed in this development at an approximate 40k discount at 160k. If the help-to-buy applies, they'll get a little over 7.5k of that back which lowers the effective purchase price to 152.5k. So if the property were sold in 5 years time, even after the clawback of 30k, they'd still have 18.5k of free equity before accounting for any capital gain in that time.

KathleenF

Sleepy wrote: »

Oh I've no problem with those buying in this development. Fair play to them, they won the lottery.

It's the council supporting such waste and the media fawning over it instead of challenging it that pisses me off.

EDIT: BTW, the clawback is nowhere near as strong a tie as you might imagine if the article I linked was correct: it's capped at 30k.

A first time buyer gets to buy a 3 bed in this development at an approximate 40k discount at 160k. If the help-to-buy applies, they'll get a little over 7.5k of that back which lowers the effective purchase price to 152.5k. So if the property were sold in 5 years time, even after the clawback of 30k, they'd still have 18.5k of free equity before accounting for any capital gain in that time.

No they wouldn't. Clawback is 30k PLUS half of any profit made on sale, reducing benefit to just over 9k in your stated case above. That's assuming you turn a profit.