Aren’t the Irish Independent Property Supplement a disgrace?
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I wish to disassociate myself from the above comments. Yes, I know who it was, and no, it won’t happen again. Sorry Paul and everyone else.
Doc and Tungsten- once more and I out you.
Phil- get back to work. 😉Your pal,
Ctesiphon (Robert).How very smug to scoff and scorn at developments, but sure what the heck – look at these gems :rolleyes:
Luckily, if that isn’t quite your cup of tea, there’s a varity of designs on offer to cater for all executive tastes:
(top of page photo-link)http://www.sherryfitz.ie/sf2003.exe?pageref=res_property&propid=LKP00716&pagemode=res
This is my favourite:
…..browsing, found this on today’s Sunday Indepenent property page:
“Artist’s impression of the €40m marina village development in the heart of Athlone. Births in the 100-birth marina cost €35,000 “
Expecting a baby boom?😀
I hadn’t realised just how acute the bed shortage is in the Midlands- not just A&E but Maternity too.
Though these will presumably be water births?I agree too about the Indo in general, It’s sort of fluffy tabloid journalism. It’s kinda like TV3’s news coverage to RTE’s or ITV to the BBC…if to make a comparison. The Irish Times is much better with Frank McDonald & Co.
Current planning application for another one of those mock-period housing estates just like the one at the start of the thread in Killenard, Co. Laois; this time in Clonmel, Co. Tipperary (Clonmel Borough Council Planning Ref. 05/132).
But leaving aside the vulgar housing style (imo), how are we ever going to create logical extensions to our towns and villages if these type of low-density, car-based housing estates keep being built? If developers keep applying for these estates and Councils keep granting them, how are we ever going to create the kind of sustainable communities we are told we need, where all services are within walking/cycling distance and the built environment integrates harmoniously with that of the existing town or village?
I read in the ST that the indo got nailed over this
a bit like a certain painting
Peach of a story — pity it was too good to be true
A GOOD rule of thumb when reading downmarket Irish papers these days is that the content will be a mixture of fact and fiction. But the Irish Independent’s love of factoids means it is a sucker for hoax stories. Remember when it published on its front page a made-up prank that Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister, was demanding the return of the National Gallery’s Caravaggio?
Last Tuesday the Indo reported that the wife of a philandering husband had daubed his €90,000 BMW M3 coup
I caught the Indo and Herald out more times… it was so easy… does anyone remember a front page Herald about murder based walking tours of Dublin?
http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/property/2006/0427/216653315RPBALLYBRITTAS.html
WINNING FORMULA OF HIGH SPEC AT LOW COST
Fiona Tyrrell 27/04/06Housing Trends
Just because no one has heard of Ballybrittas doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve good quality, claims developer Mick Cox whose high-spec development in the small Co Laois village was an instant sell-out earlier this month.Young buyers and retired couples queued from 4am to put their deposit down for one of 77 homes at Graigavern Lodge, Ballybrittas located half way between Monasterevin and Portarlington in Co Laois.
Prices started at €259,000 for three-bedroom semi-detached houses with 119sq m (1,280sq ft) of living space and went up to €420,000 for 175sq m (1,885sq ft) four/five-bed homes.With a cancellation list of 70 names, John Dunne of Hume Auctioneers says they could have sold the development twice over.
The secret of the success of the scheme? “Very good quality at a competitive price,” said the developer, Mick Cox of Boderg, who has been building in London for years. “Just because the houses are not €750,000 houses doesn’t mean they can’t have a good quality fit-out,” he explains.
People don’t want cheap and cheerful anymore and are fed up with small, high density three-bed semis with the creaking door, no storage space and low quality, according to Cox. “We recognise that people are not just buying a house. They are making the biggest purchase of their lives and you have to get it right.”
The UK residential sector is streets ahead of Ireland in terms of finish and quality, according to Cox. Cox transferred some elements of the UK sector to Ireland for the scheme. Site foremen were brought in from the UK. A quality control team flew over once a week to oversee the finish of the houses.
The Irish idea of getting nothing but the house and doing the rest yourself is unheard of in the UK, according to Cox.
“The demand is so strong in Ireland that a lot of developers have taken their eye off the ball in terms of quality fit-out and finish.” The spec at Graigavern Lodge is above average; particularity for homes in the wider commuter belt.
……………..A big player in the UK scene, Cox’s UK company Hollybrook builds around 600 houses and apartments a year in the greater London area, making it the fourth largest developer in London.
………
Cox, who is originally from Rooskey in Co Roscommon and his wife Pauline, from Mountmellick, Co Laois, purchased the site in Ballybrittas just over a year ago.
After the success of the Ballybrittas scheme, Cox is scouting around for more suitable sites and plans to become a big player in the Irish market.© The Irish Times
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Well this is just what we need to reverse our chronic sprawl and car-dependency!
We’ve realised that the only sustainable way forward is to create compact high-quality urban areas well-served by public transport, but now Mick Cox is going to come here and start building estates of luxury homes 50 miles from Dublin from which the only means of transport is the car!
Dissapointed in the Irish Times’ tone of reportage here!
Still in the slow land
THE Edgeworthstown bypass opened yesterday with little fanfare. Quite right too. Too often in the recent past, governments, and not only the Fianna Fail-PD coalition, cackled like a hen laying an egg every time they unveiled a few kilometres of motorway and dual carriageway.
It was scandalous that these roads were constructed in that piecemeal fashion, and degrading that politicians boasted of achievements which were trifling by comparison with the progress made in poorer countries like Portugal.
Our motorway programme should have started 30 years ago. An entire network should have been completed 15 years ago at the very latest. Instead, even now, even after 12 years of the Celtic Tiger, we proceed at a snail’s pace.
The phrase is singularly appropriate here. A campaign to save a rare snail held up the Kildare bypass. A campaign to save an insignificant castle placed the M50 in its present weird condition, neither finished nor unfinished.
Projects that in other countries whizz along are delayed unconscionably in Ireland by antics like the Carrickmines Castle affair.
But it is not enough to blame factors like these. A government that really wants things done will get them done. But the present Government has consistently underspent on the capital side of the Budget. Planning and vision both call for a different style.
Todays editorial in the Irish Independent
Whilst I agree with much of the above the presumption that infrastructure can be steamrolled through without heed to due process is not strictly true it is worth remembering that the Kildare Bypass project was stopped by the European Commission and Carrickmines was entirely avoidable.
Dear oh dear – from Dundalk’s ‘The Argus’ newspaper. Offers over €775,000 please.
Online version here: http://www.mallonbest.com/house_details.asp?house_id=372&house_type=3
Am I right in thinking that the Irish Times property supplement has dropped the planning section at the back?
Lad in the snap at top of the page had it right when he said “a lot of developers have taken their eye off the ball” – well, taken ever so slightly out of context… how times have so drastically changed…
I just found this topic (being a bit aged, as it is) and read with delight. Well, irritation, disbelief and delight.
The article quoted in original post is stunning, but I particularly like the one few posts above – the executive living joke. I constantly had to look from the text to the picture to check if that is the house they are actually talking about.
I’m amazed by the vocabulary used to describe this overpriced, exposed, enclosed by public road, awful piece of junk:
ultimate, prestigious, lifetime opportunity, truly quality, residence, distinctive, imposing, beautifully, generous, possibilities, large, maintenance free, appeal, extras, wonderfully, surprising privacy (?!!), fine, rarity, appreciated – all in such a short note!There is a similarity in this thread to the ‘architecture in words’ one and they are both, I think, more important than they appear. Quality of writing about architecture – and housing in general – in Ireland is very poor and is to some extent responsible for the things that have gone wrong here.
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