The words "considerable uncertainty" were used in the recent third Bacon report on housing to describe the prevailing situation regarding when and where "significant amounts of additional serviced land will become available in Dublin city and county". Ciaran Ryan, director of the Irish Home Builders Association (IHBA) believes it will be at least three to five years before most of the zoned residential land awaiting services produces much-needed housing.
"In many cases, Local Area Action Plans need to be prepared and then planning applications have to be submitted to the authorities and there is the wait for them to be granted. Then you may have to go through the appeals process and finally the houses have to be built. According to a report published by the National Economic and Social Forum entitled Social and Affordable Hous- ing and Accommodation: Building the Future, of the 29,676 sites expected to be delivered by the end of this year in the greater Dublin area, by June only 944 had been serviced."
According to Conor Falvey of the Department of the Environment and Local Government's Press and Information Unit there has as yet been "no exercise carried out to determine how many sites have been completed since June". He said that under the Serviced Land Initiative there is "potential for 20,000 houses to be built in Dublin by early next year".
The third Bacon Report, which was published in June, was not so optimistic. It estimated that likely housing yield in 2001 from significant greenfield sites in Dublin will be about 8,410 units, with Fingal producing over 6,000, South Dublin 1,500, Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown 250, and Dublin Corporation 650.
The Department of the Environment and Local Government published an inventory of the stock of zoned residential land in local authority areas that is "currently serviced or is likely to be serviced in the next six years". Based on a survey of all local authorities, it concludes that the supply of zoned and serviced land in Dublin at the end of last year exceeded 2,500 acres which, it estimated, was sufficient to provide over 40,000 housing units. The actual number of house completions in the Dublin area last year was 10,500.
This was a record figure, Conor Falvey says, "but we recognise that this has to be increased and we are confident that sufficient resources are being provided to address this issue. There is no short-term solution to the problem when it is a matter of putting the proper infrastructure in place. These things take time."
By 2005 it is estimated that the Dublin area will have over 5,000 of acres of serviced land, which could theoretically accommodate 119,229 houses. The press release accompanying this survey, which was published in June, issued a quote from the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, urging "landowners, developers and local authorities to ensure, in the interests of the community as a whole, that this land is brought into development at the earliest date".
Of the £289 million allocated to local authorities for water and waste treatment schemes, around £157 million has been spent, which, according to Conor Falvey, "may not be a totally accurate reflection as the expenditure of each local authority has to be certified by a consultant, but we are confident that this figure will be met".
There is a need for an additional 500,000 houses countrywide over the next decade, whether that demand is satisfied through owner-occupation or the rental market. Recent Government measures to moderate house prices - such as the introduction of a 2 per cent anti-speculative tax and a 9 per cent stamp duty rate on second or additional properties - will have the added effect of putting a damper on the supply of rental accommodation.
In Dublin, large tracts of land zoned for housing are unserviced. One of the largest is a 500-acre site in south Lucan. "This land was zoned for housing two years ago," says Gerry Leahy of Leahy Property and Financial Consultants, which is based in Leixlip, Co Kildare. "Two other substantial zonings of 100 acres in Newcastle and 70 acres in Rathcoole are still unserviced."
A significant proportion of lands rezoned for residential development by South Dublin County Council is not serviced. A spokesperson for South Dublin County Council said it is envisaged that the necessary services to allow residential development in the south Lucan, Rathcoole and Newcastle areas will be provided by 2002.
The inventory prepared by the Department of Environment calculates that there are currently over 300 acres of serviced land in south Dublin, which will increase to over 1,500 acres by 2005.
"Uncertainty" is a word Ciaran Ryan of the IHBA uses frequently in conversation. He says the construction industry has attempted to bring development forward by suggesting temporary solutions to the infrastructure problem, such as the use of standalone waste treatment plants until the new infrastructure is in place.
"The Minister for the Environment issued a circular last year to the local authorities in advance of a permanent solution, saying that they should consider interim and temporary arrangements for water and sewerage services. In some cases the local authorities were in favour of these measures but An Bord Pleanala came out against them. One of the reasons given is that such arrangements would be premature because the permanent infrastructure was not in place.
"This raises a series of concerns because the technical understanding is there to ensure that the highest standards are implemented in relation to environment and health protection. Measures like the standalone plants may be temporary but they wouldn't be just a fast knee-jerk reaction. Temporary could mean that it would be in place for five years or more so it wouldn't be just a case of a cheap job."
Joe McPeake of McPeake Auctioneers agrees that An Bord Pleanala has stymied several initiatives to speed up progress. "It is hard for developers. They agree a set of criteria with the local authorities and An Bord Pleanala seems to have a different set of criteria they can't match. The board is faceless and there is little or no consultation with developers."
Temporary works might include package sewage treatment plants, pumping stations and rising mains, booster pumping stations and storage tanks for water supply which would operate until the permanent infrastructure is provided by the local authority.
"Further uncertainty", says Ciaran Ryan, has been caused by a planning system that is overloaded. "There are not enough planners. One in three planning posts are vacant and in order to make the new Planning Act work we need an additional 300 planners. The future doesn't look great because there will not be enough staff to work on Local Area Action Plans, Strategic Development Zones (SDZs) and the increasing number of planning applications."
South Dublin County Council has been hampered by an ongoing dispute in its planning department where staff have been on an effective go-slow since early this year. SDZs were one of the supply-side measures designed to fast-track developments and produce some 36,000 units for the greater Dublin area. Sites are expected to be identified this month but it could be some time before this translates into houses.
One measure due to come into effect under the Planning and Development Act 1999 that will cause "huge uncertainty" in the market place, according to Mr Ryan, and which could reduce the amount of development land coming on stream is the stipulation that builders have to sell up to 20 per cent of sites to local authorities for social and affordable housing.
"Developers don't know what they are dealing with or how the market will respond. The local authorities are only giving the agricultural value for the land, not the commercial value. It could be counter-productive as developers are looking for the same return - their costs have not changed. "There is as yet no real indication on how the social housing initiative is going to work and there is concern it could be inflexible which could ultimately lead to a reduction in the supply of new homes."
The best hope of finding a solution will be if the Government, local authorities and the construction industry work together, says Mr Ryan. "I have a background of 20 years in local government and I have no problem working with the local councils. The objective is to supply the number of houses needed and it's in everybody's interest to meet this objective."
