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Council may 'intervene' at Waterford's once iconic Ard Rí site

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Comments

  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    land hoarding has to be stopped, owners just sit on their asset, waiting for its value to rise, just tax it!



  • Registered Users Posts: 295 ✭✭nomoedoe


    Why can’t the council do that with the glass factory site?,its an eyesore for years and nothing ever done about it ,Frisby wont even fence the place off!



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    they easily could, we re just very adverse to appropriately taxing wealth in the form of assets, especially related to property and land, at both the local and national level



  • Registered Users Posts: 300 ✭✭Valhalla90


    Developers sitting on land is the problem here. It should be incorporated into the North Quays plans!



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    the land should remain in state ownership, period!



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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,147 ✭✭✭hardybuck


    This article indicates that the Council had unsuccessful discussions over the sale of some of the land, and now we have an article in the media which indicates that they might tax the owner?

    The Council could be accused of acting a bit deviously here to get the kind of deal they want, or because they didn't get the deal they want.

    The article gives the impression that Walsh has been sitting on the site since 2017, there has been a legal dispute regarding the ownership of this site continued until spring 2019.



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    we do have to prevent land hoarding though, and taxation is known to work reasonably well in doing so, and the state is of course the only way to implement that, so.....



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,636 ✭✭✭Deiseen


    And then watch nothing ever happen with it. You've too much belief in the state to be a force for good. The talent, drive, belief, vision and finance just isn't there.


    Please don't reply with "what if's", let's keep things rooted in reality.



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    yes the state has and does implement dreadful policies, that does incredible damage, but its what we got, taxation is a critical need, and we have no other way of implementing such policies, again, taxation of wealth in the form of assets such as land, is well documented to work well. you can see how our primary government parties work, in regards wealth accumulation, they re still stuck in this old thinking of tax wealth as little as possible, and direct it towards labour and consumption, its clearly failing, and theyre failing(falling) with it......



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,149 ✭✭✭jelutong


    Some of the land and part of the hotel is in Co.Kilkenny.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,147 ✭✭✭hardybuck


    If it's a cut and dried case the Council should just crack on with it, they shouldn't need to be bleating in the media about what they might do. This looks like a pressure tactic to get the type deal they're looking for.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,149 ✭✭✭jelutong


    I believe the Council want to buy a piece of land to build the Guardian of The Deices on. Why not purchase the whole lot?



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,147 ✭✭✭hardybuck


    Good question, it was put up for sale a few months ago.



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    im unsure if such a tax can be implemented at a local level, but it absolutely can be at a national level, and it should be, as its a national problem, but ffg simply wont do such things



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,147 ✭✭✭hardybuck


    The Council must maintain a vacant sites register in their area with sites that are suitable for housing that have not been put forward for development, and the funds levied go to the Council.

    So again I think the Council are skating on ice here by making statements like this regarding sites that have been on the market, and which they've been trying to buy some or part of. Looks like bully boy tactics, and why not just impose the levy if that's the appropriate course of action?



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    such a levy could also be seen as a bully tactic, and in a way it would be, but thats kinna the whole idea of it, you can see how our political process dances around such issues, we have given land hoarders way too much power in such situations, but hopefully we re moving into an era whereby we re reducing it now, difficult dance id imagine



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,147 ✭✭✭hardybuck


    No its the media comment that's the bully boy tactic.

    If its correct that the levy should be applied then they should just go ahead and do it without any fuss.

    I have seen Councils try and put a levy on sites that they've refused planning permission for, so there is all sorts of blaggarding going on.



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    theres probably multiple stake holders involved in such processes, but ffg have always been extremely reluctant to implement such policies, its a fundamental part of their ideologies, it is a tricky one though, we need land owners and investors involved in order to provide us with our needs, but we just need to remove some of the power they have, not an easy task, interesting to hear councils has tried to implement such levies before though, god only knows what goes on in the background



  • Registered Users Posts: 5,147 ✭✭✭hardybuck


    Let me be clear - it is currently open to the Council to do this. Nothing impeding them in terms of Government policy.



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    yes i understand what you re saying, but we have no clue if there are bigger political forces at play here, theyre could very well be, and it also wouldnt surprise me if there was, land hoarding is common, and is politically encouraged.....



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  • Registered Users Posts: 5,147 ✭✭✭hardybuck


    I see what you're getting at but I think you're barking up the wrong tree.

    Again worth recapping on the story here. While the article gave the impression that the owner has been sitting on this for years without doing anything, it appears he bought it in 2017 and it was subject to a legal dispute for until 2019.

    If you were to sit down any try to formalise plans to develop a complex site like that, and more importantly to raise the funds to get going with it, you'd easily be looking at a couple of years before you got anywhere with it. The Council would know that themselves as a result of their experience with the North Quays.

    The guy has put the site on the market in 2021, quite soon after the Council paused the North Quays project for a couple more years at least.The Council tried to buy some or all of it but it didn't work out for whatever reason.

    The more I think of it Michael Walsh would want to be pretty careful here from an ethics perspective.



  • Registered Users Posts: 2,566 ✭✭✭Yellow_Fern


    The state is by far the worst of all land hoarders. There are sites in Dublin city bought in the 1940s still waiting for development. Private developers have a profit motive so they tend to hoard less



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    true, the state isnt fully utilizing its land resources, but land hoarding and dereliction has been increasing in the private domain, as most policies benefit such situations and outcomes, sometimes its best to do so, in order to maximize returns, without virtually making any investment, i.e. relatively easy money, by sitting and waiting for the assets to rise in value, by virtually doing nothing. this idea that the private sector is always far more 'efficient' than the state is actually another economic myth, both can be sh1t! clear examples of this in waterford in the private domain would be previous waterford crystal land/property and of course ard ri land/property....



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78




  • Registered Users Posts: 2,014 ✭✭✭spankmemunkey


    That Hotel will never be sorted, The land was surveyed by a british company and they stayed in a local hotel during their stay for the work, a guy i know who looked after them during their stay, said they told him the drainage was never right on the land and when the ground was dug the toxic waste was so far down into the rock that it eould never be safe or cost wayyyyyy too much to remedy, one of the many required reports before any other progress cud be made, these are some of the delays people dont realise are on going, not to mention an agreed sale price to someone else aparrantly sale was agreed with one party onlyto be cancelled and sold to someone else, then legal disputes followed.



  • Registered Users Posts: 1,636 ✭✭✭Deiseen




  • Registered Users Posts: 391 ✭✭GandhiwasfromBallyfermot


    Could they even knock the current building that's there in the meantime? At least then you wouldn't have a massive derelict structure staring you in the face everytime you looked across the river, and I would imagine they will have to knock it for a new development anyway.



  • Registered Users Posts: 28,703 ✭✭✭✭Wanderer78


    more state involvement is the only way to right our property markets, but that requires a government that actually wants to do it, our current government is strongly against getting too involved, as this is a fundamental element of their underlying ideologies, this approach has clearly catastrophically failed, its time for us to move on from these ideologies, and basically grow up....



  • Registered Users Posts: 479 ✭✭Squidvicious


    You have a lot of faith in the state to get things right with their involvement. There's at least as much chance that they will make things worse. If they do intervene more, I hope that they keep it simple and stick to basic things like just building houses or, possibly better, put in the infrastructure needed for housing.

    One big issue currently is the cost of building houses. Partly, this is down to general rises in the cost of materials and labour. However, another big issue is the ongoing increase in building standards. The cost of building is going up all the time so much so that it's no longer economic to build apartments in most of the country.



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  • Registered Users Posts: 2,174 ✭✭✭Thinkingaboutit


    State involvement has managed to increase rental prices (starting with the bedsit ban of a few years back) as a lot of small timers quite reasonably see that the government tries to displace anger at vulture funds by going after them. This government (inc CoCos) and previous governments have quite a record of allowing property they own to just rot, whether vacant council houses, office premises or even housing once set to staff in the Phoenix Park and others. The legal action over ownership ended not too long ago. State efforts for now should be limited to support for Waterford CoCo efforts.



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