Bungalow Dilemma
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alan d,
Have ya been over to Holland yet, or Belgium for that matter, most of the houses are actually pleasing to look at.
What are the alternatives for a person who wants to build their own home? Its pretty much live in a poorly constructed & designed but well marketed shitebox – full stop. And I think the poor services in rural areas is a very weak argument. By living in a high density urban development the services are not much better – but there is some benefits to the developer.
Any land earmarked for housing is just that – not High Density, medium density etc with minimum lot sizes & such – hence 16+ units acre are lobbed in – in the same fashion as the “estate” next door.Originally posted by alan d
ACH…….. don’t get me started on An Taisce, again.I’ve already said I’m buggered why anyone takes them seriously.
Like you take anything except your own ego seriously
Originally posted by alan d
and yes I agree ………this is a good article.An excellent article but no doubt you would have complained about its length had it been posted by an pro An Taisce individual.
Design is always an important consideration, but as this article shows there are also many other considerations.
Aahhh good to have you back to your old self Diaspora…….hate all that complimentary stuff.
Kinda…you know…creepy
……….is that Eric Clapton at the end?
……amazing.
Like the mullet haircut, nice touch
Originally published by FT UK ‘urgently needs’ 120,000 new homes a year By Alexander Jolliffe
Published: March 17 2004 9:02 | Last Updated: March 17 2004 9:02“Up to 120,000 new homes might be needed every year in England to prevent a boom and bust housing market and bring trends to the European Union average, a Treasury-commissioned review said on Wednesday. It recommended ministers set an objective of more affordable homes and said local authorities should charge more for second homes and recommended a tax on windfall gains made by landowners.
In a final review of housing supply, Kate Barker, a member of the Bank of England’s interest-rate setting monetary policy committee, told Gordon Brown, the chancellor, that rising prices had made housing increasingly unaffordable.
Mr Brown will reply to the report when presenting the Budget on Wednesday.
Commentators have warned that the Barker review, unlike the Treasury-commissioned of the mortgage market, is politically sensitive. Homeowners benefiting from rising house prices may be reluctant to support higher supply, out of fear that this could damp possible increases in the value of their homes.
The report said that for many, the aspiration to own homes would remain a dream unless the surging trend in house prices was reduced. Prices had risen in real terms – after allowing for inflation – by 2.4 per cent annually over the last 30 years, said the report.
Ms Barker said the annual increase of 120,000 homes would lower the country’s inflation-adjusted house price trend to 1.1 per cent, in line with the EU average.
Alternately, to bring the annual trend down to 1.8 per cent , about 70,000 houses a year would probably be needed in England.
Surging prices had also created macro-economic instability and had a bad effect on economic growth. To improve stability and make homes more affordable, a lower trend in house prices was needed, said Ms Barker, who published an interim report last year.
The housing market also cuts into labour market mobility because many people cannot afford to move into expensive areas.
Ms Barker set out in her report a range of recommendations to improve the housing market:
*Ministers should establish the objective of more affordable homes.
*More investment, building up to between £1.2bn and £1.6bn a year, would be needed to provide extra social housing to meet expected future needs.
*Local authorities should charge extra for second homes, to make sure housing stock is used more efficiently.
*Ministers should implement proposals for “tax transparent property vehicles,” and boost institutional investment in the property market.
*The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister – which handles housing – should set up a community infrastructure fund of £100m-£200m. Regions should submit bids for funding to support the costs of transport infrastructure schemes.
*A “planning gain supplement,” to capture some development gains made by landowners, to ensure that local communities share in the value of development. The government should tax some of the windfall gains made by landowners from selling land for development. The tax rate should not be high enough to deter development, but must provide extra resources to increase housing supply.
*A new regional planning executive, to advise the existing regional planning body about the amount of housing needed to hit the affordability target.
*The principle of containing urban sprawl through greenbelt “designation” should stay. But planning authorities should use their powers to avoid perverse environmental effects elsewhere.
*The government should consider moving to an alternative scheme to ‘right to buy’ that is cheaper to provide and enables more social housing.”[/B]
In the light of *The principle of containing urban sprawl through greenbelt “designation”
should stay.Where does that leave farmland? :rolleyes:
Originally posted by sw101
outside the greenbelt?You mean beyond the point where it is economically viable to provide services at equilibrium or better.
I was watching the Channel 4 programme last night Relocation Relocation.
It featured a family selling up in England to buy an aprtment in southern England as part of a two property plan to move to Ireland. And where did they want to move to in Ireland?
Yep, you guessed it, bungalowland i.e. Ireland outside of the Greater Dublin Area. They bought this field on a hill with a great view and wanted to build an ugly bungalow, which they had planning permission for.
I was thinking ‘my God – its bad enough having everyone in this country wanting to build a bungalow without having foreigners coming in to do the same’.
Of course Bertie et al. can look with pride in 20 years when every field in Ireland has its own bungalow.
Yep, feckin awful it was, right enough.
That show is bloody awful. Grand designs. Now theres a show worth watching. Did you see the hufhaus one?
Yep – there was a group of men on the train next to me the day after it was on, and they nattered on about it for half an hour -why can’t we do that in this flippin country, all hail the Germans etc etc!
Leave Location Location Location Relocation Relocation Revisited alone!
But yeah, I was absolutely mortified at the planner standing outside of that lovely old farmhouse, and advising that this indigenous little gem be knocked down, and replaced by – wait for it – ‘a house in character with the area’! – cue wallpaper shots of the most ghastly, disgustingly inappropriate two storey PVC clad horrors perched up on the nearest hill! It truly beggared belief!What a disgraceful, farcical state of affairs. The 4 million or so people watching in the UK, especially those rural-based, must have been falling out of their seats with mirth.
I watch this prog every week, and seeing rural Ireland on it for the first time, it really brought home to me the difference between here and rural planning in the UK. The bungalows clinging onto hillsides looked so alien on LLL last night because I’m not used to seeing them AT ALL on the UK based editions.
And the fact that every house featured, except ironically for the house thay wanted to demolish, had PVC windows, was equally noticable compared with the UK editions. People in this country couldn’t give two figs for asthetics, on any level.
It’s all about things being new and shiny – plain and simple.@Originally published by Irish Times (John McManus wrote:
The full economic cost of providing of providing infrastructure to holiday homes should be levied on their owners, according to Prof John Fitzgerald of the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
The levy is a “second best solution” to the problems created by the high level of holiday homes in the Border, Midland and Western Region, he argues in a special paper published with the ESRI’s Spring economic commentary. The best solution would be a property tax, but this had ‘proven unacceptable to the public,’ according to Prof Fitzgerald.The demand for holiday homes in the BMW region, fuelled in part by tax-breaks, has pushed up the price of housing in the region he claims. “The result has been a significant reduction in the competitiveness of the BMW region, adversely affecting the Governments policy goal of promoting more balenced regional development,” he argues.
The trend is likely to continue, he argues, and the long-term economic problems it poses could be eradicated if those buying holiday homes paid the full economic cost in terms of both infrastructure and the negative externalities (in terms of higher prices for the residents)”. Copyright Irish times March 2005)
A pretty reputable group of economists have endorsed a view that has been long held in many quarters, I’d say.
I thought all tax breaks were being eliminated. I agree with the economic levy for second holiday houses. In fact if we make it expensive to hold onto holiday houses then prices will fall in these areas.
@asdasd wrote:
In fact if we make it expensive to hold onto holiday houses then prices will fall in these areas.
That certainly would bring about a significant change in the rural BMW housing market, it would however have other knock-on effects such as placing large numbers into the “negative equity trap”. It is as Prof Fitzgerald says ‘politically unacceptable’ and would do little other than to halt the entire residential construction sector in economically sub-prime areas. I feel that a radical measure such as this would be reversed before too long and you would be back to square one with bungalow blitz brigade rampant.
@asdasd wrote:
I thought all tax breaks were being eliminated. I agree with the economic levy for second holiday houses. .
Hammer Nail Head, I agree with both your points here I was under the impression that in all but a few very area specific cases (limited to individual streets) in genuinely decaying town centres that questionable tax schemes were confined to history, obviously I was wrong.
I also agree with a levy on holiday homes and not a disincentive on the scale of a development levy contribution, it must be substantial enough to protect the population of the BMW from those who have superior purchasing power. It is not that I am in favour of distorting the market for ideological reasons, it is that I like many others wish to see all of the country develop and it is evident that high house prices in remote locations are putting pressure on to wage rates which are costing these regions the type of investments that generate long term employment.
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