Martina Devlin: Exorcise ghost estates or we'll be haunted forever
Lanky weeds colonise courtyard gardens, uncurtained windows draw the eye into unplastered, vacant rooms
DELAY is no longer an option. Housebuyers are not suddenly going to materialise for the ghost estates scratched into the countryside, and banks have no enthusiasm for providing finance even if people are inclined to take on the debt.
We can't keep waiting for the tide to turn. It's ignoring the problem to leave these unoccupied, sometimes unfinished developments in place -- a creaking reminder of more foolish days.
The houses deteriorate weekly, neglect reducing them to a mockery of the homes they were once intended to provide. Some are already a potential public health risk, with open drains and hazardous electrical cables.
They are neither socially desirable nor aesthetically appealing, and they definitely don't count as a tourist attraction. It's time to exorcise our ghosts.
This week, I visited Copper Point in Schull, west Cork. The estate was launched with fanfare in 2008, more than a year after the peak, but the hopeful folk involved predicted its designer specifications and scenic position would allow it to buck the slide. None of the 55 units sold. Three years later, they remain unsold and the development is controlled by NAMA.
Copper Point is one among 230 incomplete developments in the State. Strolling through its various phases was an eerie experience: some in almost showhouse condition and some little more than shells, lacking internal doors, fittings and electrics.
Lanky weeds colonise courtyard gardens, uncurtained windows draw the eye into unplastered, vacant rooms. A lorry with expired tax and NCT discs lies abandoned on one of the estate's roads, while the site office is locked and deserted.
There is no doubt the finished properties, built from glass and wood and overlooking a harbour, tick the 'des res' box. But they were put on the starting blocks at €450,000 upwards, an unrealistic figure today -- as it was back on 2008.
Vision is one thing, reality another. Spending time here is akin to walking the decks of the Marie Celeste. It is an abandoned development. Its loans, taken out by the Walsh Group, have been transferred to NAMA, the National Assets management Agency.
This tier of 55 houses is a tangible example of the challenge facing NAMA, not just in west Cork but countrywide. Will anyone ever want to buy these homes -- no matter how cheap the price tag and how picturesque the setting?
Many of the locations chosen for ambitious developments are small towns, and minimal analysis seems to have been conducted into whether sufficient demand existed for the number of properties built.
In Schull, many of the buildings are old and painted in vibrant colours characteristic of the region. At the far end of the town, something entirely different, ultra modern in design, was set up. Such dichotomies occur all over the country, of course, but in this case the new addition is half-finished and unpopulated. That makes it a social problem.
Typically, when a developer goes into NAMA, he draws up a business plan that NAMA decides whether or not to approve. The plan sets realistic prices for selling properties, and makes the case for NAMA to supply funding to finish a project. But at what stage does the State cut its losses and send in the bulldozers?
We should salvage what we can, of course, and sell as many properties as possible -- with prices pitched well below the 50pc reduction cited as a reasonable estimate in the current market. Purchasers need an extra incentive to buy into a ghost estate.
But people may not want to live in these areas, even if a house is a bargain. Some estates are too far from workplaces or amenities. A number were built as a financial inducement rather than as homes -- for example, along the Shannon, where houses had tax-relief status.
So what should happen to these houses now? Foreign banks are indicating a preference for knocking down ghost estates rather than paying for their upkeep, or risking public liability cases if people are injured on site. NAMA chief executive Brendan McDonagh last month said non-NAMA banks were "looking at a situation where it might be more economical for them to take out the foundations and actually turn (sites) back into a green field area".
Where the loans are in NAMA and properties are suitable, they should be taken into public ownership for council housing. Tenants in poor quality accommodation can be re-housed in this way, instead of councils upgrading existing council houses as occupants move out.
In addition, some consideration ought to be given to making stocks of housing available to organisations working with homeless and special needs people.
But there are still too many houses, often in remote spots. We must bite the bullet here and raze some empty estates. It costs money to knock down houses but that's a one-off charge compared with upkeep.
Before the wrecking balls swing, the houses can be asset-stripped. Useful elements of partially finished or shoddy houses could be auctioned off, even if they go for a fraction of their price, with the purchaser obliged to remove whatever baths, stoves or internal doors he or she bought.
Realistically, the land can't be returned to farmland because it is full of builders' rubbish and drains, but it could be converted to public spaces such as parks, play areas and sports fields. Use the rubble for dry fill to repair roads.
As for blocks of apartments in areas of natural beauty, they should be demolished for visual reasons.
Brendan McDonagh has warned of a considerable oversupply of housing, and said developments in certain parts of the State should never have received planning approval. Which we can see for ourselves now, of course.
Perhaps councils confused fancy new housing estates with progress. Presumably they didn't see the harm -- not anticipating unfinished, unsold, unoccupied projects -- but the result is yet more ghosts for the State to lay to rest. It should get cracking.
- Martina Devlin
Irish Independent
