Officials at Dublin City Council announced last week an initiative which could be an important contribution to dealing with the city’s housing crisis. It has become prohibitively expensive for builders to secure zoned sites in and around the city and then to obtain planning permission should they be fortunate enough to acquire sites with zoning.
Several have been frustrated by local residents’ groups objecting all the way up to An Bord Pleanála and on to judicial review in the courts, with the support of local politicians. As a result, what little new construction gets undertaken is at the high end of the market, well beyond the reach of people on average incomes.
The resulting pressure on the rental market means that a modest two-bedroomed apartment anywhere close to the city costs €2,000 per month, €3000 in places.
The council officials have identified a number of old 1970s industrial estates, in private ownership, which in many cases are already derelict or are heading in that direction. Some of the abandoned units are breeze-block eyesores not suitable for modern manufacturing and in a well-run country they would long ago have been knocked. But Ireland’s zoning system is so prescriptive that non-industrial uses cannot be undertaken without formal re-zoning decisions by councillors. Visitors to the city will have noticed that many office blocks from the same era have been replaced but that can be done without a change of zoning.
For the derelict industrial estates, that is not commercially possible – there is no demand for new industrial units in these locations. There is, however, a strong demand for apartments. Rather than deal with re-zoning requests on a case-by-case basis, the new plan is to ask councillors to re-zone these estates to residential all in one go.
In aggregate, the amount of land that could become available from this proposal is significant and some of the estates are in locations likely to prove popular. An example is the industrial estate opposite Glasnevin cemetery, which backs on to the Luas cross-city line at Broombridge, where there is also a suburban rail station. The city of Dublin was smaller in the 1960s and 1970s when these estates were built and they tend to be located close to the city, inside the M50. If they are not converted to residential use, they will probably stay derelict forever.
What could possibly go wrong? Well the councillors might resist the proposal for a blanket re-zoning of the derelict industrial estates but the officials are optimistic that they will approve. A more serious risk on past form is that they will resist each specific proposal when it comes to the planning permission stage.
In this, they will enjoy the support of The Irish Times, which served up a remarkably confused editorial on this initiative from city council management. ‘‘New housing projects for these sites tend to generate emotional and political support’’ moans the paper, complaining that ‘‘Intensive lobbying has been conducted at national and local level in favour of re-zoning these run-down, city-based industrial estates’’.
The Irish Times is concerned that the owners will enjoy a windfall if the re-zoning goes ahead, and proposes that only a portion of the sites should be designated residential. The rest would continue as industrial land ‘‘...so that people can find work locally’’.
The people seeking industrial work locally are not identified and do not appear to exist. If they did, they would presumably have to live somewhere. Any land reserved for industrial use in these unsuitable locations will stay derelict, enhancing the windfall for whatever bits are re-designated.
The Irish Times is not the only voice in the housing debate seeking to restrict developers’ windfall profits by enhancing them through restrictive zoning.
There is a logic trap for all those who use this line of argument, the Charter of Nimbyism. The best way to restrict windfalls for those who possess residential land around Dublin is to ensure that there is plenty of it, which means zoning everything out to the far horizon and granting planning permission freely and promptly.
There is no shortage of land in and around Dublin, but there is a shortage of residential zoning and a shortage of planning permission – both policy failures.
One of the biggest wasted sites is in Rathmines, home to a sprawling army barracks, ideally located to protect the state against an invasion by the fearsome residents of leafy Rathgar and Milltown, where modest houses cost a million. The rest of the city contains more ill-utilised publicly-owned land, dowdy and derelict industrial estates, oversized and deserted public parks in the suburbs and a generally profligate and wasteful land-use policy.
People who believe that housing in Dublin is too expensive but that housing provision can continue to be restricted should learn some baby economics.
Read more
Problems with affordable housing
Political fairy dust won’t fix problems of rural Ireland
Officials at Dublin City Council announced last week an initiative which could be an important contribution to dealing with the city’s housing crisis. It has become prohibitively expensive for builders to secure zoned sites in and around the city and then to obtain planning permission should they be fortunate enough to acquire sites with zoning.
Several have been frustrated by local residents’ groups objecting all the way up to An Bord Pleanála and on to judicial review in the courts, with the support of local politicians. As a result, what little new construction gets undertaken is at the high end of the market, well beyond the reach of people on average incomes.
The resulting pressure on the rental market means that a modest two-bedroomed apartment anywhere close to the city costs €2,000 per month, €3000 in places.
The council officials have identified a number of old 1970s industrial estates, in private ownership, which in many cases are already derelict or are heading in that direction. Some of the abandoned units are breeze-block eyesores not suitable for modern manufacturing and in a well-run country they would long ago have been knocked. But Ireland’s zoning system is so prescriptive that non-industrial uses cannot be undertaken without formal re-zoning decisions by councillors. Visitors to the city will have noticed that many office blocks from the same era have been replaced but that can be done without a change of zoning.
For the derelict industrial estates, that is not commercially possible – there is no demand for new industrial units in these locations. There is, however, a strong demand for apartments. Rather than deal with re-zoning requests on a case-by-case basis, the new plan is to ask councillors to re-zone these estates to residential all in one go.
In aggregate, the amount of land that could become available from this proposal is significant and some of the estates are in locations likely to prove popular. An example is the industrial estate opposite Glasnevin cemetery, which backs on to the Luas cross-city line at Broombridge, where there is also a suburban rail station. The city of Dublin was smaller in the 1960s and 1970s when these estates were built and they tend to be located close to the city, inside the M50. If they are not converted to residential use, they will probably stay derelict forever.
What could possibly go wrong? Well the councillors might resist the proposal for a blanket re-zoning of the derelict industrial estates but the officials are optimistic that they will approve. A more serious risk on past form is that they will resist each specific proposal when it comes to the planning permission stage.
In this, they will enjoy the support of The Irish Times, which served up a remarkably confused editorial on this initiative from city council management. ‘‘New housing projects for these sites tend to generate emotional and political support’’ moans the paper, complaining that ‘‘Intensive lobbying has been conducted at national and local level in favour of re-zoning these run-down, city-based industrial estates’’.
The Irish Times is concerned that the owners will enjoy a windfall if the re-zoning goes ahead, and proposes that only a portion of the sites should be designated residential. The rest would continue as industrial land ‘‘...so that people can find work locally’’.
The people seeking industrial work locally are not identified and do not appear to exist. If they did, they would presumably have to live somewhere. Any land reserved for industrial use in these unsuitable locations will stay derelict, enhancing the windfall for whatever bits are re-designated.
The Irish Times is not the only voice in the housing debate seeking to restrict developers’ windfall profits by enhancing them through restrictive zoning.
There is a logic trap for all those who use this line of argument, the Charter of Nimbyism. The best way to restrict windfalls for those who possess residential land around Dublin is to ensure that there is plenty of it, which means zoning everything out to the far horizon and granting planning permission freely and promptly.
There is no shortage of land in and around Dublin, but there is a shortage of residential zoning and a shortage of planning permission – both policy failures.
One of the biggest wasted sites is in Rathmines, home to a sprawling army barracks, ideally located to protect the state against an invasion by the fearsome residents of leafy Rathgar and Milltown, where modest houses cost a million. The rest of the city contains more ill-utilised publicly-owned land, dowdy and derelict industrial estates, oversized and deserted public parks in the suburbs and a generally profligate and wasteful land-use policy.
People who believe that housing in Dublin is too expensive but that housing provision can continue to be restricted should learn some baby economics.
Read more
Problems with affordable housing
Political fairy dust won’t fix problems of rural Ireland
SHARING OPTIONS