Skip to main content
Normal View

Unfinished Housing Developments

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 5 December 2013

Thursday, 5 December 2013

Questions (6)

Brian Stanley

Question:

6. Deputy Brian Stanley asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the number of housing units in ghost estates that are to be demolished; the location of same; the criteria for same; and cost of these demolitions. [51819/13]

View answer

Oral answers (11 contributions)

The national co-ordinating committee, chaired by the Minister of State with responsibility for housing and planning, was established as a response to the report of the advisory group on unfinished housing developments and has harnessed the expertise and goodwill of the construction and banking sectors, local authorities, residents' representatives and NAMA.

Local authorities are continuing to pursue developers and others to comply with their obligations under planning regulations. Developer-, funder- or receiver-funded site resolution processes will remain the main vehicle for tackling unfinished developments. Five hundred and fifty three developments have been brought to a resolution point in this way over the past 12 months. It is expected that such processes will continue to make significant inroads into the remaining 992 inhabited unfinished developments.

Additionally, my Department has available a special resolution fund of €10 million, which was provided in budget 2014, to address the completion of infrastructure in developments which could not be resolved because of absences of, or inadequacies in, planning securities and other unforeseen cost and risk issues. The fund will be operated by the local authorities and will be carefully targeted mainly to address difficulties with public infrastructure that have arisen in certain developments included in the Department's national housing development survey 2013.

It is also necessary to explore resolution of these developments which appear to be commercially unviable owing to location, build quality, commercial demand or other factors and where the most prudent course of action may be to seek the agreement of owners or funders to clear all or part of the site. Accordingly, the national co-ordinating committee established a group to oversee the development of a strategy for these residual developments and work with stakeholders in identifying and agreeing such sites for full or partial clearance, thereby improving the lives of existing residents and removing dangerous structures from public access. Some 40 such developments have been initially identified and fall to be addressed by the relevant owners, receivers and funders. The estates identified by the funders have not been identified to my Department for commercially sensitive reasons. The costs associated with this strategy are equally sensitive and I do not hold this information. Responsibility for the clearance of unviable estates remains with the funders and I welcome their participation in this pragmatic approach which will further underscore a return to a properly functioning property market.

I thank the Minister for his reply. There has been progress on the unfinished estates on which people live. If the money allocated is used in the same way as the €5 million already used, it will go a long way to sorting out some of the bad cases.

The no hope ghost estates are part of the legacy of the economic illiteracy in the State for many years. They blight the landscape and some are dangerous. There are apartments built in places where they will never be required. Imagine, there are apartments in Borris-on-Ossory where there would not be a huge demand for unfinished apartments, but there is a demand for two, three and four bedroom houses. I do not want to see anything being demolished that does not have to be. The criteria need to be clearer for anything that can be put to use. The Balcon site on the Dublin Road in Portlaoise is appalling. I want to talk to the Minister about it.

The Deputy is being very parochial today-----

-----in moving from Borris-on-Ossory to Mountmellick.

I agree with the Deputy that there are some serious issues to be resolved and that 40 such developments have been identified to be partially or fully cleared. I hope that work will be done early in 2014. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has sanctioned a new round of funding in the budget which will allow the Minister of State at my Department with responsibility for housing and planning , Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, to draw up lists in conjunction with local authorities of places where we can make further progress. We have made money available to deal with public safety issues to make these particular unsavoury locations safe. We need to resolve certain issues; some are in receivership, some are in liquidation, while in some cases there are no owners or funding available. Bonds will accommodate only part of the solution. We will ask local authorities early in the new year to give us their priority lists to identify where we can apply some of the €10 million to advance some of these projects.

On the site on the Dublin Road that I mentioned there are cables in the trenches with water. It will have to be levelled. It will be difficult to return some of these sites to agricultural use. The Minister has mentioned some where there is no developer or funder and no one is responsible. There is a huge need for local authority housing and there will be a need for sites, but land will become expensive again. If these sites were cleared and the State and local authorities have to step in, the Minister might take on board an idea I heard this morning, that where the State has to pick up the tab on estates on which there is some infrastructure, it acquire the sites, especially if NAMA is involved. This would be cost-neutral and the sites could be used for the development of affordable and social housing.

I agree with the Deputy. We will work with local authorities, particularly if projects are in NAMA, to get the best value for the taxpayer but also to provide much needed social housing for many people on waiting lists. If local authorities come forward with proposals along these lines, we will be glad to consider them.

It would help to pay back some of the €10 million the taxpayer is putting in.

Top
Share