IF RECENT reports are to be believed, the modular housing units in Ballymun could end up costing close to €243,000 each. That’s a hell of a lot of money for what are, after all, glorified prefabs in a less leafy part of the city. ‘Rapid build’ homes is the latest description doing the rounds.
Last year’s announcement of the five chosen Dublin sites – Poppintree, Finglas, Belcamp, Drimnagh and Ballyfermot – was seen in some quarters as a belated, panicked response to the escalating homelessness crisis, with record numbers of families living in hotels or unsuitable temporary accommodation. The fact that a general election was only a few months away possibly concentrated political minds at the time.
We were initially led to believe that the modular housing units would cost less than €100,000 each and were being fast-tracked through the planning process to ensure that the first residents would be moved in before Christmas. The tight deadline seemed over ambitious to begin with and the construction work was hampered by protests and bad weather – ‘Acts of God’, if you will.
Four months on, there’s fresh controversy after reports emerged that Dublin City Council had sought increased funding for the Poppintree project, which, if true, would result in a cost of approximately €243,000 per unit. The local authority said in a statement that it would be “inappropriate” and “misleading” to comment on the matter of costs, citing issues of commercial sensitivity and confidentiality. Which is fair enough, I suppose.
It did make me think, though. Rather than squander taxpayers’ money on overpriced prefabs, would it not be a simpler solution for the Government to buy existing houses in the five designated areas? Always happy to help, I did a bit of research of my own on a popular property website – and the results were quite encouraging.
In the Dublin 11 area, where modular homes are planned for Finglas and Poppintree, there were 40 houses for sale, ranging in price from €115,000 to €200,000.
In the Dublin 17 area, instead of building modular homes, the council could purchase six properties currently for sale for less than €200,000, with prices starting as low as €80,000.
In Dublin 10, we found 14 homes on the market, with an average price of €150,000.
In Dublin 12, taking in Drimnagh and Crumlin, there were 20 homes for sale under the €200,000 mark, with €180,000 being the average price.
So a cursory 10-minute browse of the website revealed there were 80 homes for sale close to all five sites where it would be cheaper to buy existing properties rather than build modular homes, if the €243,000 figure is even close to being accurate.
Am I missing something here?