Irish writer and filmmaker Manchan Magan once built a house in a straw bag. A new arrival from Mexico in Dublin’s serious housing crisis, I’m starting to think about following his example.
I knew the situation was bad before I arrived — the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), which advises the government, urged “bold action” last November. .. .. To fix our dysfunctional housing system. ”
In fact, at the beginning of August, Ireland had 2,455 rental homes. This is “a record low and a very low number for an Irish-sized country,” according to a recent report by Daft.ie, a real estate site I looked at 20. Once a day.
So, of course, there are few important issues here. housing.. Therefore, you might expect the new large-scale private property development plan to be praised.
Take the neighborhood of Drumcondra. Close to Dublin city centre, home to Ireland’s largest sports arena for gaelic football and hurling, Cloak Park, and a candidate for a major housing project by US real estate developer Hines.
Funded by the Dutch pension fund APG, Hines is seeking permission to build most of the 1,614 small apartments on its former site. Seminary.. The development will provide high-quality (read, expensive) housing targeting 70% of the demand in the rental market for one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, reducing local rents.
“The more we don’t overcome and build, the worse the crisis will be,” says Brian Moran, Managing Director of Hines, Ireland.
But with the project Others like it As they “build for rent”, they infuriated the locals trying to climb the property ladder. Developers build and own all apartments and rent them out to cover the cost of their investment. Individuals cannot purchase these properties.
Buying a home in Ireland is a challenge in itself. Construction costs are enormous, according to Trinity College economist and housing expert Ronan Lyons. The break-even point for a two-bed apartment builder is € 450,000. Recent reports.. Repayments are high and real estate prices are often stubbornly higher than banks are willing to lend.
For a renter, a quarter of Irish households, things are not easy. Dublin’s rent has more than doubled in the last decade as Lions called it an “abnormal supply shortage.”
Housing conditions are particularly disastrous for low-income earners, and the government plans to announce a large-scale, long-awaited state-building program called Housing for All in the coming days.
On the other hand, in Dublin, it seems that there are offices where workers can never return and private construction of houses that can not afford it.
Alfonso Bonilla, an architect and a major opponent of the Hines project, criticized the criteria for rental builds and called them “insufficient for long-term life.” He believes that the development of drumcondra for up to 4,000 people is “based on the marketability of design, not social cohesion.”
Originally from Mexico City, Bonilla has twice the population of Ireland as a whole, so he knows one or two things about trying to make the city suitable for city life.
After spending eight years in the sprawl phenomenon of the vibrant and chaotic city of Mexico’s capital, my difficult Dublin rental search is: aduantas, Irish for anxiety caused by an unfamiliar environment (a term I learned from Magan’s latest book, 32 words in the field).. And even if I lived in Dublin for a short time in 1993-4, after spending 21 years in Latin America, Europe certainly feels unfamiliar to me.
Since then, Northern Ireland is still in trouble, and the Republic abortion And the arrival of an international technology giant attracted to a solid corporate tax. The early construction and development of the “Celtic Tiger” boom was beginning to transform Dublin. Now it’s richer, more international and much more multicultural, with trendy cafes lined up on the sidewalks and flashy cars lined up than I remember on the road.
It may still feel a bit strange, but like Dublin’s recent sunshine, the welcome has become wonderfully warm. I know I feel like I’m at home right away. But first — and maybe some nice realtors are reading this — I need to find a home.
jude.webber@ft.com
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