Affordable Housing in Cork??

Emily Sodor

Has anyone applied or is applying for an Affordable House in Cork? Have you been successful? I've heard of people getting them in Dublin but no one from Cork so far? I would love to hear from people who have either got one in Cork(might give me some hope)or who are applying for one like myself!

invincibleirish

the government promised 10,000 houses around two years ago as part of the social partnership agreement, however,somewhat unsurprisingly, they have failed to deliver this promise, with very few being built in cork or elsewhere such as dublin,use your vote at the next election to kick these clowns out, remember cork has the highest proportion of Fianna Fail tds in the country, about 15 of the 22 cork tds are FF,about a fifth of the FF parliamentery party are cork tds, what little difference they;ve made......

waz

There were a number available in youghal and castlemartyr which were left vacant for a long time. heard it was a lack of interest in the scheme+

kevinroche

One thing that is quite noticeable in Cork is the lack of tendency to advertise things.

Were the houses in Youghal and Castlemartyr advertised in newspapers, billboards, etc?

waz wrote:

There were a number available in youghal and castlemartyr which were left vacant for a long time. heard it was a lack of interest in the scheme+

tucholsky

The reason that there is so much more affordable housing available in dublin and so little in Cork is because the City Council as a matter of policy does not enforce Part V under which developers are required to give 20% of housing to local authorities. They accept small cash donations instead which are used for other purposes. That is why the waiting list in Cork is so large. There were 600 applications for the 15 units in Mahon which will be available in a few months. These houses were built under the Sustaining Progress agreement of a few years ago where the govt promised to build 10,000 houses within 3 years. 30 have been delivered to date. The govt argues that more are not needed because Part V should be deliveing sufficient numbers to meet demand. They have a point as it is, only not in Cork

Dizzyblabla

Isn't there a big development going up in Donnybrook?

Dimitri

tucholsky wrote:

The reason that there is so much more affordable housing available in dublin and so little in Cork is because the City Council as a matter of policy does not enforce Part V under which developers are required to give 20% of housing to local authorities. They accept small cash donations instead which are used for other purposes. That is why the waiting list in Cork is so large. There were 600 applications for the 15 units in Mahon which will be available in a few months. These houses were built under the Sustaining Progress agreement of a few years ago where the govt promised to build 10,000 houses within 3 years. 30 have been delivered to date. The govt argues that more are not needed because Part V should be deliveing sufficient numbers to meet demand. They have a point as it is, only not in Cork

Sounds fishy to me considering i know of two people working mainly on the part v planning sceme in cork county council, can you back this up?

parsi

kevinroche wrote:

One thing that is quite noticeable in Cork is the lack of tendency to advertise things.

Were the houses in Youghal and Castlemartyr advertised in newspapers, billboards, etc?

Well if they weren't initially advertised they were certainly well publicised when they were unable to fill them. Then again a lot of "fullprice" developments fill up without much in the way of newspapers,billboards etc.

But you are right - Cork is totally devoid of adverts for anything. In fact I have often commented on the waste of all those blank billboards and those free papers which don't have any ads at all. Oh and as for the Corpo - they sent us mutiple letters not advertising new services.... (this was a sarcastic paragraph btw).

tucholsky

sure can Dimitri. go to the Dept of the Enviroment website , look at the Housing Statistics bulletins. compare Dublin with Cork. look at recent Dail debates re numbers acquired under sustaining progress. Look at council minutes to see how cheaply officials are selling out to developers.

http://www.environ.ie/DOEI/DOEIPUB.nsf/WvNavView/RegularPublications?OpenDocument&Lang=#I2

btw Bush never made those remarks. its an urban legend spread on an e-mail

Dimitri

I stand corrected although its not really a fair comparison considering dublin city council takes in a far larger population than cork city council, in an area where affordable housing is is required even more than here in cork. While i am aware that money is accepted instead of actual houses (if that makes sense?!) to the best of my knowledge this is covered by the part5 and must be re-invested in affordable housing. However this is what i'm told by folks in the know and i may not have the full story, if not i apoligise!

tucholsky: sig has been edited although it was not in an email i saw these but on a poster

tucholsky

The population is larger but it is interesting to note the way the Dublin authorities are getting large numbers of houses and appartments whereas the Cork authorities are instead taking small payments e.g €9,000 for a recent large development . I would also question whether they can justify this by claiming that there is no demand for affordable housing in Cork.
As regards the money being reinvested there is no evidence of this and even it was the amounts they are accepting are so small it wouldn't really make much of a difference.

tucholsky

http://www.snopes.com/quotes/candidate.asp

kevinroche

Does anyone know what CCC do with the small cash donations?

tucholsky wrote:

...the City Council as a matter of policy does not enforce Part V under which developers are required to give 20% of housing to local authorities. They accept small cash donations instead which are used for other purposes....

Dimitri

kevinroche wrote:

Does anyone know what CCC do with the small cash donations?

CCC- Do you mean cork county or city council?

gubby

I too would love to know the story about affordable housing? can a single parent apply? where do you get details? talked to a td but he was not very helpful.

I think all extremest should be shot!

tucholsky

Cork County Council have not yet been forced to publicly release the figures regarding the amounts they are takin. Cork City Council received less than a million from all developers during 2003 and 2004.

tucholsky

The situation as it is in areas where FF councillers have not succeeded in blocking the implemtation of Part V for their developer friends

http://www.fingalcoco.ie/LivingInFingal/Housing/AffordableHousing/

nesf

The scheme has become more popular, or so I've heard. More people are aware of it now.

There's more pressure on the City Corporation to make them available

Hopefully it'll happen soon!

tucholsky

Don't bet on it. They will probably just continue with the practice of making promises about the future, same as they have been doing for the last five years and contintue to take the money.

madisona

ever hear the one about the property developer and the housing official?

a Council official in Waterford was suspended after he was caught taking bribes from developers in exchange for first allowing them to make a payment instead of giving housing and then underestimating the contribution.

http://www.examiner.ie/pport/web/ireland/Full_Story/did-sgLDRvtTRgZC2sglO-LCk0lQvU.asp