Right to a house?

Matt Barrett wrote: »

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(By the way, if NAMA gave individuals loans to build their own homes at rates more favourable than any bank was willing to there'd be sherry spilling in Fine Gael branches throughout the land.)

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The biggest environmental problem in this country is the sheer amount of one-off housing built outside cities over the last twenty years. We will never be able to provide services to them.

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

Just because it's a PPP thought doesn't mean the local authority doesn't own the public portion of the development. Take O'Devaney Gardens for example. Half of the 585 new homes will be private housing, 30 per cent will be social housing, and 20 per cent will be “ affordable” housing . That to me is the kind of mix we should be aiming for.

High rents at present are being driven by lack of supply. Best way to ease that pressure is building more houses.

My point is that the council should own the private element as well. They should retain ownership of the entire site and just set different rent bands in order to achieve a mixed-tenure - because the point again is, even market rates are simply to expensive for the majority of ordinary people right now. They need to be artificially deflated as a matter of urgency, not in five or ten years, or quality of life will suffer across the board. The council should be contracting people to build on these sites but retaining ownership of 100% of the units.

Essentially what I'm saying is that in the past, there were two categories of rent - market rents for the majority and social rents for the less well off. There now need to be three, IMO - social rents for the less well off, some kind of neutral rents on council owned land for ordinary people who can't afford category three, which is the absolutely insane private rental market where people are paying upwards of €1,000 per month to rent a tiny room with what is essentially a portaloo in the corner and you have to sit on the toilet in order to have room to cook.

I'm advocating for a full scale intervention to deflate the rental market. I'm not just talking about building social housing for the massively disadvantaged, I'm suggesting that the council should start building housing en masse just for ordinary people who simply can't afford what now qualifies as a "standard" market rate. Peoples' housing simply shouldn't be subject to the merciless concept of supply and demand - it isn't morally justifiable any longer.

Topgear on Dave wrote: »

While your ideas may indeed be good and noble, dont expect the council to do any of them.

DCC (an area i'd say is ground zero for high rents) are busy fighting with Bob Geldof, flying the Palestinian flag and now arguing about the interior decor of the council chamber :pac:

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/off-with-their-heads-in-council-chamber-row-ppwq0f7fw

The current set of DCC members are the biggest joke ever, every single one of them should be turfed out at the next election. They don't have a single achievement to their name during their time in office.

recedite wrote: »

No need to, they provide their own services. And still pay the development levies and the property tax.

Actually the biggest environmental problem in Wicklow is probably the large town of Arklow which discharges raw sewage into the local river estuary.
"One off" houses further inland have their own private sewage systems, and where people also draw water from their own well, there is a strong incentive to ensure that the groundwater in the vicinity is protected to a high standard.

So hospital services are provided to every rural hamlet?

We already know the higher cost of one-teacher and two-teacher rural schools.

The provision of government services such as education, health, road maintenance, library, policing, etc. to dispersed locations carries an environmental cost as well as a financial cost, hence the worldwide trend towards urbanisation.

recedite wrote: »

them running at a profit, with bums on seats, and with cheaper fares.

The trains would run from Mallow (called "Cork") and Galway to Heuston with a single stop in Portlaoise (called "Limerick East"). MOL's success with Ryanair is almost entirely down to price sensitivity rather than efficiency. He realised that air travel was so expensive and infrequent for most people that they would be willing to sacrifice a lot of service for a lower price.

The same innovations he used for Ryanair don't apply to IR. So there's no evidence he be any good at it.

This thread has devolved into a discussion of basic economics on one hand versus fantasy nonsense on the other.

hatrickpatrick wrote: »

Of course this is also part of the problem. I still feel that the root of the issue is the ideological / policy position of "the free market is sacred and the government does not directly impinge upon it", IE we don't do what we used to and directly hire builders and architects to build housing which would be 100% owned by the councils, who would then administer the renting thereof on a long term basis. This policy worked in the past, the current policy does not work, ergo we need to revert.

It's just not that complicated. If you own a shop and you find that your sales plummet after you change your internal lighting from warm-yellow to cold-blue, do you then operate for years upon years with the cold-blue lighting and constantly scratch your head saying "I just don't know why our business has fallen apart"? Government policy changed in the late 1980s / early 1990s, that change in policy has been a f*cking nightmare since day one, let's simply change back. Very, very simple stuff.

Because this gave rise to virtual Getto's. In theory you could say that you will go for a mixture of tenants. But it is unlikly that Tenants that are paying there own hard cash will move into such developments unless you subisdize(lower rent) compared to private rentals.

At the first sign of anti-social behavior these tenants will exit these area's. Mixed developments require that you will also have owner occupier's. Will these individuals be will to risk buying property where 30-50% of the development is managed by a Council.

The government has tried to involve Housing associations but the issue is proving a hard nut to crack.

Matt Barrett wrote: »

So tax payer funded rent subsidies going to private landlords are 'social housing' now?

This has been the case for years.

What makes you think they are massaging the figures?

Matt Barrett wrote: »

I'm sure the numbers are legit, it's putting tax payer funded rent allowance under the umbrella of creating 'social housing' that's simply crap.

Are you happy with more tax money going that route being spun as a victory of sorts when that model is not working?

Of course the model is working. That's why the take up of the scheme is increasing all the time.

You don't seem to appreciate that this is the cheapest way possible for the Govt at the moment to achieve it's objective of getting people into housing and keeping them there. When alternatives are available they can switch to those.

Matt Barrett wrote: »

Agreed, but I'm more concerned for the tax payer. It's the most expensive way to partially stem the tide for the tax payer.
By 'saving' money on not building social housing, we need spend on emergency accommodation and rent allowances. So I don't see the savings for the tax payer here.
The point is they are selling the tax payer funding of rent supplements as a social housing creating win. It's nonsense PR spin.

The model may be working, but not for the tax payer.

Hard to know. Failure to manage the stock of social housing on a proactive basis means that cost of provision is more than a one off cost. Travelling through Limerick lately by the railway station is an apartment complex that is being renovated. They were build in the early 70's from information I recieved and had to be evacuated in the late ninety's/early noughties mostly due to anti social behaviour. The tax payer may be better off with hard nosed private sector landlords rather than local authoritie's that are unable to manage housing stock. This is not just an isolated case there are several such area's in Limerick and this is replicated accross urban Ireland. I think there is even a similar such estate in Tuam but I may have wrong information