Frank Taylor
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Was there not a mini-riot in Grafton Street on St Patrick’s day a few years ago, also fuelled by lose bricks from interminable roadworks?
Why not have the next Orange parade in Croke Park, available on pay-per-view? I’d watch it.
Colliseum Part II
And where was robocop when we needed him and his see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil colleagues who proved themselves so brave when knocking the shite out of a gang of hippy schoolkids on Dame Street?
Where does this leave Bertie’s plan to steal a march on the chuckies by running a 1916 commemoration up O’Connell Street? Looks like he was beaten to it. Not just a commemoration but a re-enactment. I’m almost expecting the rebel leaders to be rounded up and executed by Michael McDowell.
If the building were to be replaced, I would favour high quality pastiche infill but I guess there is no chance because the new building has an extra floor and nobody’s going to give that away.
@PDLL wrote:
Regarding the economic elements of your argument, Frank, I have address the complexities of these issues in the Eoghan Harris thread where I attempted to show as calculating the price of a few telegraph poles or the infill for a few potholes. I would refer you to the many posts in this thread which I think expose some of the additional complications in working out whether the net cost of one-off houses to the state is greater than the net cost of urban houses to the state.
I’ve read through your arguments detailing why one-off housing may not be more expensive to the state than urban dwellings. When comparing urban with one-off housing I am thinking of urban as any area of a village, town or city with density of 30-40 people/acre.
I was interested to read it because I couldn’t imagine what arguments could be made. OK so here is my summary of your points. (Correct me where I have misunderstood you.)
1. Less urban-style social problems means lower costs
You compare a sink estate in Tallaght with a collection of one-off houses to show that urban housing comes with costly social problems not found in isolated rural houses.
This is not a useful comparison as you are looking at two different socio-economic groups.
2. Residents of one-off houses have money
You point out that people who build one-off houses must have some cash to spend so are likely net contributors to the state coffers. This is true but working people contribute to the state coffers wherever they live. The question is whether they cost the state more or less by living in one-off housing.
3. Tourist attraction
Some one-off houses also function as B&Bs and thus generate revenue for the state through tourism. It was reported a few years ago that one-off housing accounted for 40% of new houses built. (http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/front/2001/0426/fro1.htm ) With 80,000 new dwellings last year, B&Bs cannot make up a significant proportion of that number. Lots of people use their homes to operate some kind of a business, whether in towns or in isolated locations.
4. Less social cost from driving
Rural car driving is less hazardous to the environment than urban driving, so smaller economic cost.
I would agree with you here. Urban driving is far more damaging to the environment than rural driving.
5. Everyone gets subsidies
You suggest that any subsidies received by people in one-off houses are more than matched by subsidies to urban dwellers. You point out that city dwellers have many things unavailable to people in solated locations.
It is true that if you live in a town then the services you get from government will be more numerous and of higher quailty than those you receive in an isolated location. This is because these services can be provided at less cost when people live close together than when they live far apart. it does not follow that higher quality services implies subsidisation.@PDLL wrote:
I challenged anyone to give me concrete economic data that proves that the average one-off house dweller is more of a net financial burden on the state than an average city/town dweller (this being one of the primary accusations made against one-off housing dwellers). I am still waiting to see such a definitive data.
The theory is that when people live in more dispersed patterns, the average distance between their dwellings increases. If you wish to provide a service whether phone, electricity, policing or transport to people who live close together it costs less than it does to provide those services to people who live far apart.
If you have a job like forester or farmer, then fair enough you have to live in the country and few would argue that you should have to pay more for a phone connection than a city dweller even if it costs the phone company 10 times more to provide and maintain that service for you. However if you are working in a city and you choose to live in the country because you prefer the lifestyle, then you impose higher costs on society than an urban dweller. You use more cable and poles to get your electrical and phone services, the council needs to build and maintain more roads to meet your needs. It costs more to get you to hospital by ambulance if you fall sick and more to get a fire engine to your house should you need it. You cover more miles driving to work and going shopping so you are more likely to kill and injure people.
In short, you have saved money by paying less for your house and but cost more money to the state. If a few people make this choice it’s no problem but what happens when hundreds of thousands of people choose to live outside the city they work in and externalise their costs to society?
When you ask for definitive data, are you asking someone to prove that connecting a terrace of 20 houses whether in a city, town or village to a set of services costs less than connecting 20 houses to those services in a 200 acre area?
Say you get to the stage where you have a drawing of how your rooms will look and the designer has picked out the fabrics, paints and furniture. Now you can either walk away and do it yourself, buying the materials yourself and hiring contractors for the hard parts or you can just tell the interior designer to organise all this.
If you choose the latter then the interior designer has to manage the contractors and find the best deals for the materials. If you are happy with this and trust the designer then that’s OK. You could get screwed if the designer is unethical and chooses materials and workers based on the commission she can earn from them rather than the best people for the job. At worst they could lie to you about prices and the quality of materials used.
Paris and Northern France have a simliar radial pattern of infrastructure to Ireland with 7 motorways emanating from the capital.At least Paris is inland and a more natural hub. The Swiss have a multi-hubbed motorway network and a more balanced development and power balance. This could be mostly due to geography (having to build through the valleys).
4 motorways in Meath is crazy.
I think it was a mistake to build six motorways out of Dublin and a better approach would have been to make a grid like pattern with Dublin only connected directly to Limerick, Waterford and Belfast.
It is true that you can build infrastructure before the population arrives but you gotta have a plan for how this is going to happen.
@PDLL wrote:
Implicitly, however, the central thrust evident in many threads is that infrastructural development in this country should be focussed primarily on the major urban centres (Dublin and the few token towns and cities on the western seaboard). It has been argued both implicitly and explicitly that infrastructural projects of any substance (rail line, motorway or dual carriageway at the every least) that would help stimulate real economic and population development along the western seaboard are largely a waste of time unless, of course, they connect these outlying satellite cities with Dublin. Hence a rail line along the western seaboard connecting nearly 2 million people has been seen as a folly that would distract valuable investment away from Dublin. Indirectly, therefore, the vision of Ireland propagated in various ways throughout Archiseek is one which has Dublin at its centre and then 5 or 6 reasonably sized cities dispersed around the state (none of which would be connected to each other by serious transport infrastructure except by way of travelling through Dublin).
Would you oppose a multi hubbed infrastructure network, where Cork Limerick and Galway became significant centres of gravity?
Work out what proportion of your budget you are happy to spend. eg 10%
Pick a house or hotel that you like the design of then contact the designer.
Find out if she’ll do anything for your budget. Agree exactly what they will do for the money.
They should be asking you what kind of effect you want to achieve and the practicalities of your needs like whether it has to be baby-proof etc. If they don’t do this you are paying an artist and anything could happen. Part of your fee goes on paying them to listen to you and come up with ideas.
Some provide you with a sheet of paper (sometimes framed) with bits of fabrics, wallpaper and paint that they intend to use so you can see how they go together. You can ask them to draw you up a sketch of how the room will look. You can ask them for a few choices as with any designer.
If you are loaded you can then let the designer execute the design, buy materials, hire contractors and project manage the job. They will make commission on this and you can get badly screwed during this stage. The designer may not be so hot at project management.
I reckon it’s definitely worth paying for the ideas stage A lot of designers enjoy this stage most.. You could spend your decorating budget and end up with something that doesn’t work well practically or aesthetically.
I have been in about 8,000 houses in London where the proud owner with thick rimmed specs showed me his or her Eames lounger and Corbusier sofa. You don’t want that.
Anything that separates the leader of the day from the experiences of the people is a bad thing. Some concessions may have to be made for security reasons, but I’d prefer if he drove his own car or took public transport, lived in a normal house according to his means used aer lingus and so on. It’s hard to make good decisions when you’re too far apart from the real world. He should live a life according to his not insubstantial salary.
Making a permanent residence is a step towards monarchy and moves away from the idea that a change of regime leads to any difference. The parties are already too similar without this.
Down with that sort of thing!
Cute Panda weakens his arguments by overstating the case but his posts are so funny. Keep it up.
He could just have said that in Ireland the urban poor have been viewed with more hostility and suspicion than the rural poor. Hence the ‘failure’ of Ballymun.
Why waste your time worrying about planning rules when you could ask Boss Hogg to see you right?
Jackie:
064-32467 Kerry Office
01-618 3363 Dublin Office@Thomond Park wrote:
Cost
Maybe it could be dammed up by the custom house where the river is narrow. It’s gotta cost less than a cable car. It would benefit every property by the Liffey and improve the centre city visually and olefactorily.
Ecological damage
I am amazed anything is alive in that filth.
Salmon migration
Technology solution to that one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fish_ladder@Thomond Park wrote:
I am unsure as to why you have adopted a 15 year term]The NRA says the concession expires in 2020 – 15 years from now.
http://www.nra.ie/PublicPrivatePartnership/ProjectTracker/M50SecondWest-LinkBridge/The figure cannot be calculated on the basis of a multiple of that number but must be discounted to reflect the fact that the value of one euro in 23 years time is not equal to that of today.
Tolls are index linked, so in 15 years they will be charging 1 euro plus 15 years of inflation.This is still worth less than a euro today so long as you can invest risk free above the inflation rate.
A euro today is worth more than a guarantee of a euro in a year’s time, due to inflation and lost returns.
This is the concept of Net Present Value used when calculatinvg the value of a company based on projected future income.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/n/npv.aspUnless I have misunderstood you, you seem to suggest that possible investment returns are greater when you invest cash later rather than sooner. This would be untrue. NTR would get a better return by investing 287m cash today than investing an average 19m a year for the next 15 years.
I excluded inflation from calculations because the tolls are index-linked.
The thesis title is a loaded question, assuming that the scheme failed.
There are two ways a project can be said to be a failure
A. If it fails to meet its goals (objective failure)
B. If it is seen to be a failure by those affected (subjective failure)To measure objective failure you’d have to discover what the goals of the original project were or if there were any. You would also have to ask whether it was worse or better than other public housing schemes. Maybe the answer is that public housing was a failure and Ballymun was the highest profile public housing scheme.
Subjective failure is measured by asking people (residents, state, people from other parts fo the city) whether and why it failed.
These are the numbers I was working from:
100,000 cars * .35 profit * 365 days * 15 years = €191,625,000
150,000 cars * .35 profit * 365 days * 15 years = €287,437,500either way it’s nowhere near €600m
There have been a number of estimates of the cost of the buy out in the press from €100m to €1b, so here is the first public offer from the owner, €600m. As the concession has 15 years to run, that’s equivalent to €40m per year.
NTR has said that is is making about 35 cent operating profit on the 1.80 toll with 1 euro going to the state and the other 45 cent spent on costs. 35 cent on 100,000 cars a day for a year gives just 12.8 million profit. So something doesn’t add up.
In future years, the extra capacity on the M50 could deliver a 50% increase in traffic to 150,000 cars a day, but even then, NTR should be happy with about €250-300m
The concession requires NTR to maintain the N3-N4 section of motorway in return for collecting tolls but that’s just a cost so NTR is hardly going to demand that they be allowed to continue running that section of road. I guess I am missing something here.
The Flood tribunal suggested Liam Lawlor had been paid 74,000 for a consultancy report for NTR in the early 1990s. This seems such a small amount of money compared to the cost to the state of an over-generous contract. Maybe future major contracts could be amended to allow for termination in the case where undeclared payments were found to have been made to officials by the winning bidder.
