Action needed as housing policy ‘impacting Cork jobs’
Jobs potential in Cork will continue to be impacted unless the Government takes action to address the housing crisis.
That was the feeling express this week by one of Cork’s leading developers Michael O’Flynn, who said the current housing shortage on Leeside was “very serious” and required immediate action by the Government. “I think the problem is particularly acute in Cork, where we are building offices at a rate where we won’t be able to house all the people,” he told the Cork Independent.
“From an industry and jobs location point of view, it’s very serious, and unless we take some serious decisions around land, we will not be able to produce housing that is both viable for us and affordable for your standard couple.”
Mr O’Flynn’s comments come as developers GPD said last week that Ireland needs to triple its total new homes output in 2018 for the next three years to alleviate the current housing crisis. “The civic mission of the city is to attract more multinational corporations here. But where are these workers going to live?” GPD General Manager Aaron Willis said.
“We need much greater numbers of mixed-used developments in the region as a matter of urgency. We must put the infrastructure in place to attract both young workers and those workers in their 30s and 40s who want to live in the city with their families. We must make Cork a compelling proposition if we want our economy to thrive.”
Mr O’Flynn added that current barriers to addressing the crisis included Central Bank rules, a lack of affordable land to build on and Ireland’s 13.5 per cent VAT rate on developing housing. He rejected suggestions that apartments were the answer for Cork.
“Cork is not a big city, a lot of people don’t want apartments, and we are not in a position to build them because the value doesn’t justify creating the product either in the city or even really as low-rise projects in the county.
“The Government and political leaders will have to quickly deal with the fact the housing market currently is dysfunctional, is impacting jobs in the Cork region and will continue to do so.” Adding that rent pressure zones (RPZs), Government-designated regions where rents cannot rise above four per cent per year, were “not the silver bullet” to solving the crisis, Mr O’Flynn also said the help-to-buy scheme needed to be extended. “Otherwise, you’ll see a third of our buyers pushed into rental, and more rental people will be pushed into social housing. It’s the case of solving one problem and creating another,” he finished.