The wondrous adventures of Sinn Fein (part 3) Mod Notes and Threadbanned List in OP
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I don't need to. You said one or two, I gave you one off the top of my head. Unless you are claiming we don't own two? I supplied an article regarding how much we own already zoned for housing.
You tell them what you want to build. They submit plans and costing. You approve and off they go. Happens every day. Do you think a developer sits watching brickies all day? We already do business with these people before the housing is complete. Costs can change that's business, would still be cheaper than buying.
If we need to buy land we do. The state would have to pay the market rate like anyone else. We have plenty of land currently, (see the article I posted).
Ah, the asset. That's the thinking has us in a housing crisis for a decade. It's short sighted. It's Celtic Tiger era thinking. It's the government and LA's job to use our money and assets to service society. Not make matters worse for short term gain. You could build housing or pay for more 'emergency' hotel stays or 25 year leases with no option to buy. What's the asset in selling off land then needing the money to replace it?
20 or so years ago we bought a house to use as social in a complete emergency scenario. It was rare. Putting a family up in emergency accommodation was as rare, usually because of a house fire or something. All of these are not only common practice today, they are part of the permanent system. That coupled with owning and affordable rent for working people getting further and further out of reach shows, beyond any doubt that the housing policies of the last decade do not work.
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That's some tangent there, you were asked to name a location, refused to name one (and got pissy when asked for the actual location) and pointed at an article about what ff/fg are doing already.
Who in the council is going to draw up the plans, who is going to put them out to tender, who in the council has the expertise to ensure the tender are costed properly? I.e. how many qualified developers are you going to hire and pay to do the development? You have no idea if this is cheaper than buying, the council historically overspend in this area, why would it be different this time?
So we don't buy land again now (the point here being that you would have to outbid developers to do so and inadvertently push prices higher again...).
This just doesn't seem to be well thought out at all.
Start with the basics, show a single site that could used, what the land would be worth and what could be built on it and then the "saving" can be figured out. I'm sure it could be done, I just doubt there are the expertise there to do so and we'll end up spending the same anyway and not have the land asset afterwards anyway.
Because with the proposal.above all the saving would end up in the pocket of the builders, planners and developers anyway and the accommodation would probably have to be sold or leased below cost to be viable.
The other option is to start hiring the people to do the work onto the council like happened in the past.
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I cannot express how unfazed, un-pissy and un-antagonistic I am being. I am trying to speak plainly.
I am addressing all your queries as best I can.
You asked me to name one or two areas I'd gift. I said I would gift zero to a private developer and suggested St. Michaels for public. What is your problem? You've referenced this three times now like I completely ignored you. The article has all the information. It shows we do own land for housing.
The councillors would decide how much housing they need. Then they draw up requirements, how many, what types, where etc. Then they ask for tenders from contractors/developers. They review what they receive and pick one.
Councils already do this kind of business when engaging in PPP.
Currently we don't need to buy land, but we could. I don't see what you're asking exactly. I explained it last post. Purchase like any other entity.
It's quiet simple, (no offence intended).
When a developer builds something, he pays all the costs, all the taxes, all the materials and a wage to himself. He owns those properties. He then puts the property on the market, sells it, recoups everything he spent, (remember he's already paid himself) and gets as much profit on top of that as he can. This could be any amount.
When we pay to have something built, we do all of the above, but don't sell. Building is cheaper than buying.
People building and selling don't break even, they make profits. Building yourself you pay the costs and wages, but not the market mark up, profit.
Why on earth would anyone ever build anything if buying was cheaper? It's a **** nuts concept quite frankly.
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OK, let's start simply, here is what you said:
For public: the st Michaels estate site in the heart of Dublin 8.
I said this:
I assume you mean the site beside the barracks which is currently going through planning for affordable housing?
When you don't answer that I asked:
OK, be specific on the one location you want to use
Is that the site you were talking about? (one that is already in development...).
Let's start there before addressing the rest.
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Look I've led you by the hand as best I could. Everything you need to know I've posted. The st. Michael site was off the top of my head. It has been vacant for several years with many plans. I showed you there are numerous sites available. im not planning and costing a job for your online jollies. Its not needed I've proved the basic logic and fact that building is cheaper. You seem to be looking for excuses to keep your head in the sand. Good luck with that.
The real question you should be asking is why we are gifting public land for a percentage of housing or a 25 year lease apartment with no option to buy when we could be building ourselves?
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OK, we're back to 0 sites named (even looking at St. Michaels there is already adjoining sites with apartments built, so nothing novel will happen there) and a newspaper article that there could be more sites, let's move on.
What % of the cost of the apartment (as the council would unlikely be building houses in demand locations) is made up of the site cost? Roughly, on average, even for 1 site.
That is then the margin the council have to stay within for the scheme to be worth it along with the opportunity cost of not doing something else with the site and the opportunity cost of not using the proceeds from selling the site to do something else (e.g. renovate existing stock or spaff it on a whitewater rafting scheme).
You then have to have the expertise to do what a developer does to the site within the council (this will eat up a lot of that margin), have the council agree to the scheme (unlikely as SF are blocking most housing developments right now, FF/FG will just do the same when SF make the proposal) and also take on 100% of the risk if costs balloon or the property market has a hiccough.
This isn't something novel that's only been discovered, it's been tried before and was a mess with costs ballooning and inefficiencies everywhere, it was abandoned for those reasons.
So you need to convince people that those reasons are no longer valid.
Not keep on explaining to others what you think a gift is and shout at them for not thinking outside the box for an idea that was already tried and failed.
The real question you should be asking is why we are gifting public land for a percentage of housing or a 25 year lease apartment with no option to buy when we could be building ourselves?
The answer is simple, efficiencies in the system for something the councils can't do themselves. You need to detail why those existing efficiencies are worth less than the council doing it themselves and as you can't name 1 currently unused site as an example to start with, I doubt that will happen, but I could be surprised.
edit: and I've noticed that you still didn't confirm that I was referencing the correct site at St. Michaels, is it the barracks adjacent site? You don't need to launch into another head in the sand tirade to answer that, a simple yes/no suffices.
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Yes, there is only one St. Micheal's site in dublin 8. Those apartments were built years ago and are occupied. They are not the beginning of any alleged new build.
Other available sites are:
CIE works up the road from St. Michaels.
Cork Docklands.
Limerick's Colbert Station.
Again, can you clarify your problem here? Do you think there is no publicly owned land unless I list it or do you believe there is publicly owned land and you are just being arsey? I'm not sure what you want me to prove and why?
I am not jumping through hoops. I'm spoon feeding you facts you are seemingly ignoring to constantly return to the query above. I posted an article regarding publicly owned land yet you still want me to provide a list for some reason. I've explained why building is cheaper and you want me to carry out a costed survey. Maybe pay me and I'll consider it. Are going to supply same?
The councils have built for themselves en masse for generation by paying professionals to carry out the work. This is how we get infrastructure and maintain council dwellings. They tender out. This is common practice. To suggest the council themselves would be building is either severe ignorance of the process on your behalf or you are on the wind up.
You have not supplied one iota to show me why buying or leasing for 25 years with no option to buy is preferable to building? Can you do that? Show me an example. You say the answer is simple. I'm all ears.
The former government housing adviser, now TD's, husband:
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I've not quoted SF once . Cut the spin. We should look into the paranoid shinner conspiracy therories that helps those defending the indefensible sleep at night.
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OK, so we have one site with development already in the planning stages (St. Michaels), Cork Docklands which is already going for planning, the Colbert Quarter in Limerick which is already under planning, I'm guessing the CIE site is Davitt road? (development objected to by a SF councilor among others, but please correct me if I have the wrong location here).
Without knowing how much cheaper the council, who has no expertise on building, will be able to build, answering the questions about how much they save really isn't possible (and again, that's why I asked for 1 or 2 examples as then it's possible to figure out the savings without you complaining about planning out the entire country).
So we've established that there is no "out of the box" thinking here or people sticking their head in the sand, it was done in the past and didn't work very well with no response on what has changed to make it work today.
What you need to answer is:
- How do you stop the opposition councilors from vetoing the projects when all SF are doing today is objecting to housing developments.
- How do you hire the expertise to do the work of a developer and pay them the right amount so there isn't cost overruns defeating the purpose of supplying the land (again, council buying land to build on would be idiotic as it would push the price of land and houses up).
- For the "gifted" land, what projects are going to be cancelled that would have been funded by the sale (given all you've listed already have development plans in place).
You have not supplied one iota to show me why buying or leasing for 25 years with no option to buy if preferable to building? Can you do that? Show me an example. You say the answer is simple. I'm all ears.
Not sure what this means: "buying or leasing for 25 years with no option to buy if preferable to building", do you mean the council buying built houses? And the council entering into long term leasing of houses?
I guess the answer to both would be that it would be more cost efficient for the council to enter into such an arrangement that trying to do everything themselves, the council doesn't have to take on any risk or liabilities in getting the accommodation built vs. doing it themselves. Obviously the maths on this changes if the council can do this significantly cheaper (probably on the order of 50% to make up for the opportunity cost and risk being taken on), which is why it's important to know the numbers, if the site cost of an apartment block makes up ~20% of the cost of the apartment, the council would likely end up losing money while taking on the risk and not being able to spend the money elsewhere.
Ultimately, the only way this works is if the councils start directly employing developers and builders to do the work, which then creates long term future liabilities (pensions) for something that was abandoned already (and for the reasons above, I mean the single one that SF would be unable to push through developments without councilor support is probably a show stopper).
My guess is that it will be tried in one or two locations, costs will overrun, those working on it will treat it as a gravy train and they'll end up more expensive than if the site was sold, SF will blame everybody else but themselves for a scheme with a foreseeable failure in the future (because it was tried and failed in the past). Unless there is something novel in this new plan that has never been tried before, is there?
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St. Micheals has been in the planning stages on a number of projects that never materialised.
To repeat, the councils have decades of experience paying people to build for them. Everything that gets done goes through the council. No private builder acts alone and in a vacuum building or carrying out maintenance for the council. The councils have professionals to over see the tendering and planning process.
I wouldn't. I applaud most opposed developments for they are either not fit for purpose or not a good deal for the tax payer. If it's not right, don't support it.
There are usually over runs. The same way we deal with professional building tunnels, bridges and other infrastructure. You do know we already engage in such processes?
The council currently don't need to buy land. They can if they need to. Right now we are enabling private builds that can maintain or raise already high pricing because we are also the customer. That's idiotic and business as usual right now. They are building apartments, charging what they like and we are waiting in the wings to buy or lease them. This drives up or maintains high pricing and helps keep individuals priced out. This has been shown. This causes a greater need for more affordable and social and we turn back to these people again and around we go. Government housing policy makes the crisis worse. That's idiotic.
We don't and do not need to hire developers and trades people as council employees. That's complete nonsense. If a tenant has a plumbing issue the council hire a plumber. If we need roads, we hire a contractor.
Show me where monies from the sale of public land benefit public housing. Currently we are leasing luxury apartments for 25 years with no option to buy. What great savings are we making by doing that? Where is all the money we are making from gifting land going? Is there any or just a percentage of housing on formally public land?
We built vast swathes of public owned social housing estates in the past and it was companies hired to build.
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This article from 2018 gives the details of State owned zoned land bank. Enough to build 114,000 social/affordable housing.
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St. Micheals has been in the planning stages on a number of projects that never materialised.
How will the council running it directly fix that problem though? Is the land not being free the problem there or is it something else?
To repeat, the councils have decades of experience paying people to build for them. Everything that gets done goes through the council. No private builder acts alone and in a vacuum building or carrying out maintenance for the council. The councils have professionals to over see the tendering and planning process.
OK, so you're just going to pay the equivalent of developers to do the work, so the cost there won't really be saved on building, you're literally just saving the land cost, of which you don't have a %value per dwelling yet, that's the margin that needs to handle any cost overruns and the risk that the council will be taking on vs. a developer buying the land and building on it (and then completed dwellings bought or leased back).
I wouldn't. I applaud most opposed developments for they are either not fit for purpose or not a good deal for the tax payer. If it's not right, don't support it.
But you do recognise that nothing will happen then? Because those currently opposed by SF with an FF/FG/Green/Labour plan will just be objected to by everybody else when it's an SF plan? Who are SF reaching out towards to get these plans started?
There are usually over runs. The same way we deal with professional building tunnels, bridges and other infrastructure. You do know we already engage in such processes?
We do, however now the council is taking on further risk if there are overruns for a task which they don't have any current expertise for.
The council currently don't need to buy land. They can if they need to. Right now we are enabling private builds that can maintain or raise already high pricing because we are also the customer. That's idiotic and business as usual right now. They are building apartments, charging what they like and we are waiting in the wings to buy or lease them. This drives up or maintains high pricing and helps keep individuals priced out. This has been shown. This causes a greater need for more affordable and social and we turn back to these people again and around we go. Government housing policy makes the crisis worse. That's idiotic.
I agree the council shouldn't buy any new land for housing for some of the same reason that them engaging in building it themselves will end in a big mess. No developer "charges what they like", they charge the market rate which is driven by supply, increasing the supply and letting accommodation get built reduces the price, putting the state in charge of building accommodation itself will likely drive up prices due to the costs incurred by the council in that building, there is no reason for them to be efficient at doing so, so they won't be.
We don't and do not need to hire developers and trades people as council employees. That's complete nonsense. If a tenant has a plumbing issue the council hire a plumber. If we need roads, we hire a contractor.
So there's no difference from now apart from a % of each apartment being funded directly by the council via the cost of land, minus the risk taken on in taking on the development, minus the opportunity cost of doing something else with that land and the money used to build on that land.
Show me where monies from the sale of public land benefit public housing. Currently we are leasing luxury apartments for 25 years with no option to buy. What great savings are we making by doing that? Where is all the money we are making from gifting land going? Is there any or just a percentage of housing on formally public land?
There's a few issues to solve here, if a developer is building 200 luxury apartments with 10% for social housing, do they make 10% less luxurious because of this? It's a bit of a headline, sure, and developers have in the past traded these for other less luxurious locations, do we drop the social/affordable housing element if accommodation is luxurious?
Then the other issue is leasing instead of buying, apartments need to be rebuilt eventually, they don't last forever, with a lease, again, the risk of paying for a replacement down the road won't fall on the council, if there's no issues, a further lease can be taken, if there are issues, the lease can be ended with no liability left on the council. Leasing isn't always the most cost efficient way to do something, but there should be a good mix in any portfolio of owned and leased which allows flexibility into the future.
We built vast swathes of public owned social housing estates in the past and it was companies hired to build.
Which is entirely the point, we did it in the past and it wasn't efficient, this proposal isn't new or novel with the big difference being that now the councils have less expertise in this area, yet it's now expected to be successful? Why? What difference do SF make? Or are you saying that the past times it was used by FF and FG that it was hugely successful?
The proposal here is to give that land bank away for free, meanwhile the different parties block each other from building either down to NIMBY'ism or having a dogmatic view on what should be built.
To be fair to Brucie, he is engaging and giving answers, the biggest problem here is treating the opportunity cost as €0 which isn't the case, the councils fund themselves off the sales and use that money to deliver infrastructure and other projects (including refurbishing existing stock), the plan becomes another variation on the magic money tree, aghast at selling off some semi-state for profit but full on for giving land away for free with a continual liability on the council. If the council could do this significantly cheaper (and I don't believe they could) then it might be do-able and value for money but the current proposal has disaster written all over it.
edit: I would also add it's good to dig into SF's policies on this thread, but fear it will quickly descend back to historical stuff where there's comfort in whataboutery.
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The council have had numerous issues with the St. Michaels plot. The most infamous being the battle of wits between the then housing minister and local government TD. Also it was originally part of the regeneration plan initially. That seems gone now. Any problems would be exactly the same if we paid people to build or let them build and ride us.
The saving is not paying the profit mark up. I've stated this several times in as many ways I can. I will not revisit it again. We would have costs and housing; not costs, market set profit and then housing. Not buying or leasing off the market is the saving. Seriously I can't keep spelling it out. How do people who build and sell or invest in them make any money? The market profit after all costs are met. We Void that by building
What wasn't efficient about it? Is 25 year leases, hotels and buying efficient? Hatdly.
I appreciate the condescension, but I hate to state the obvious. I don't know all of SF's policies. All I really know is they favour building over buying and leasing, as do I and other parties do. The idea that every government critic is a shinner is just something supporters of government tell themselves to dismiss criticism. Edit: look no further than your pal there for looking back into history ;)
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You cant help me because you don't understand that a developer will earn a profit if a LA hires them to build.....
Utterly deluded and wrong...
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You're not spelling anything out, the cost of the house isn't land + building + profit, it's the prevailing market rate, which can mean you make a loss or gain at the end of it, the way the councils are setup (and if they're doing things all wrong now, how will SF fix that? It's the councils doing the leasing, not the government...) this would likely be a loss unless they somehow become much more efficient at what they do.
Any problems would be exactly the same if we paid people to build or let them build and ride us.
How does the former prevent the latter's proposed outcome?
Not buying or leasing off the market is the saving.
Will that be more or less than the money gained from selling the land?
And again, there is nothing novel in this idea, nothing new coming from SF, if it failed in the past why would it succeed now? What difference are SF going to make? How will they unblock planning and keep costs under control?
And I think everyone can understand that sometimes it makes sense to lease and sometimes it makes sense to buy? Don't they? It's not some trick being played on the (mostly very rich) people who choose the leasing route. If the council negotiated a bad lease (and I'm sure you have evidence of this and the numbers involved if you're using it as an example), again, how will SF fix that? Wouldn't that be another indicator that the councils shouldn't be trusted to build themselves?
And no luxury apartments for council tenants then? All developers just build luxury apartments to avoid that clause.
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I am not an SF supporter.
But given that the market is failing to deliver enough houses at reasonable prices, I (reluctantly) think the State and the LAs should do more.
By that I mean the LAs to become property developers.
Using their own lands, or lands delivered by the LDA, or other State-owned lands, the LAs, or some other State agency, should hire contractors to build houses.
I do not mean for the State to hire building workers/subbies, the actual building should remain a market/private effort by contractors.
The following costs should be reduced / eliminated:
(1) reduce land costs (I know the land has an opportunity costs)
(2) reduce finance costs as the State can borrow way cheaper than a developer
(3) eliminate the developer's margin by de-risking the development
(4) leave just the building contractor margin
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On what planet is it better value to lease social housing vs buy it?
The present market rent is several times what a mortgage on similar property per month,
we are looking at present rate of pay-to-price of needing to house upto 40% of population each generation going forward,or else force a collaspe of house prices to affordable levels wiping out peoples equity (and likely collaspe banks)
Rightly or wrongly shinners have placed emselves in side of people needing housing,
the government while wanting to keep a floor under houseprices and avoid building social housing,have simply run out of road,with what was ever going to be a short term policy
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How do you plan to stop a situation like the new National Children's Hospital from happening again with housing?
The state has hired a developer to build a hospital for us, yet I seem to remember the Big Ten and people like yourself giving out about it....
So give us your answer...
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Certainly would not be giving BAM a blank cheque anyway.....such a shower of gangsters never seen before (they are notrious for overruns and bankrupting sub-contractors)
BAM were losest tender on the dunkettle interchange,but for obvious reasons werent allocted the job,sisk got it.....we did also have to kind of bail-out the main contractor on the M7 job,to avoid em going broke and BAM taking it over
Lessons most certainly have been learned from.the whole childrens hospiteal debacle within terms of prudence and contracts
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On the leasing vs. buying argument it will really depend on the figures involved, is the lease below market rate, does it have break conditions, is the plan to roll over the lease afterwards or end it, who is paying the maintenance costs of the property, without knowing that detail, it's impossible to know if it's a bad deal or not. But again, if it is/was a bad deal, why are you then trusting the council involved to be able to build it themselves and not make a mess of it? How does that get fixed?
Rightly or wrongly shinners have placed emselves in side of people needing housing,
That is a platitude that means nothing, what are they actually going to do that's novel or hasn't been tried before? How do they stop the other parties from blocking all their plans same as they're currently trying to block building at the moment?
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All well and good to spout this stuff online but the reality is, a politician cannot interfere in the tender process for obvious reasons.
So how would SF for example stop situations like BAM and the children's hospital from happening again?
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Mate,renting is running at roughly twice rate of mortgage on similar property....the leases are signed for market rates,we getting bloody fleeced,i know it,you know it,whoevers at fault needs gone
To best my knowledge,they are objecting to giving away public land,which even under their affordable home plan,the state retain ownership of the site,and the buyer buys the house,thus in theory increasing value of the states asset...
which is a v.interesting concept and should in theory provide stability and aid in building long term viable communities as opposed to quick cash build and dump to rental market ownership model......(im unsure of what rights state has to object of rental of houses on state owned site,so would like clarified)
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Have they not called for oversight and proper development of units to oversee any/all contracts and value for money
BAM (same as all large civils firms) have lads on 150k plus per annum to find faults within contracts and extras on all jobs,these are then used to fleece extra money from jobs,with what i can ascertain zero oversight/questioning from any civil servant to gauantee value for money.
Its quiet astohnishing this hasnt been done for all state contracts,privitastion has failed in this country and simply results in tax payer being fleeced,
where i work,any council jobs are seen as a cashcow for a handy few extra hundred.....what BAM is doing,is what every private firm doing work for state is doing,just simply on a larger scale
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The land goes with the property (likely an apartment) unless the affordable home is a lease, in which case it's owned by the management company with the apartment on a (usually) 99 year lease? The state maintains a % share of the ownership that can be bought out by the apartment owner later on (with certain conditions), they do not retain the land.
And again jumping to a presumption on getting fleeced, yet this the same people you want to be in charge of house building and not get fleeced? How does that work? How does this not end in the tax payer fleeced and the land bank gone?
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The land deos not necessarly go with the property,we had fairly protracted issues with regards a council pumphouse on an outside farm,built in 1940s,as we owned the site,but not pumphouse (which hadnt been used in like 40 years),and had some anti-social issues and wanted to buy out council and demolish before coming to resolution
The exact ins/outs and wordings of the law,im unsure of,but the council have deeds to that house,while we have it mapped into our land....but seemingly its not uncommon owmership structure for them handpumps you see on side road in particular
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No they won't. Thats not how business works. Experts and professionals take paying jobs every day.
Exactly. The prevailing market rate they sell at sets how much profit, on top of costs the buyer is paying for.
Selling public land for a percentage of housing is something I'm against.
It didn't fail in the past. We went from slums to housing hundreds and thousands all over the country.
On a small scale leasing or renting is a good option for people on lower incomes. Not a country. I would hope neither SF nor any other new government would enter into such stupid deals.
There's no clause. Leasing luxury or regular apartments instead of building is not a good deal. Instead of putting families in state owned housing and charging rent we are putting them 8n privately leased properties. On a short term small scale, maybe. But not long term and so broad. Its bad for the tax payer.
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OK, so the whole mantra of building is cheaper than buying is now null and void? Brucie wont be happy that you are taking his talking points and tearing them to shreds. :)
TLDR: There is no guarantee that building is cheaper than buying given the way LA's work.
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Seriously? Are you suggesting we buy hospitals off daft.ie? We have a government who are either on the take or incompetent. Thats part of the problem we have with the NCH. The finance and previous health minister were not keeping an eye on it and played, I hope for their sake, dumb as regards oversight. Its a ridiculous situation that it seems nobody was keeping an eye. They don't do accountability after all.
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No they won't. Thats not how business works. Experts and professionals take paying jobs every day.
A developer is not a one man band, like an accountant or a solicitor. They are a team of people who build houses from scratch and comprise of many different specialities. When you hire a developer you are hiring a company or a firm, who you have to pay and the developer will have a profit margin built into it.
The fact that you cannot see that a developer hired by a LA will quote a price back to LA to build x houses won't have a profit margin built into said tender leads me to believe that you are unwilling or unable to see the simple truth of it here.
TLDR: Developers won't work for free regardless of who is footing the bill.
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If you are not paying for the site and retaining ownership,you are saving upon site costs??(and deffo not handing it away to private ownership either-which is a form of brainwashing caused by privitisation)
Admitedely double-accounting same as oppurtunity cost when doing profitability of farming and not something im particularly comfortable with,
but theres a whole aspect to finicial world,which always seemed set up to defraud people and something.to steer well clear of (off topic,but crypto just seems a hyper version of it all really)
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