Royal Irish Academy Conference: Spatial Justice and the Irish Crisis 23 April, 2013, Academy House The on-going crisis and associated responses to it (political, governance, popular etc.) provides an entry point for a wide-ranging exploration of spatial justice as a theoretical construct and a departure point for empirical analysis. Discourses of justice, equality and fairness remain central to a range of interconnected debates as Ireland seeks to recover from the interrelated collapses of the banking system and property markets and the knock on effects through the rest of society and the economy. Scale is an important dimension in framing and constructing popular discourses concerning issues of justice, e.g. the role of EU institutions in shaping Ireland’s treatment of banking debt or the impact of national budgetary measures on particular places. The focus of this conference is on understanding these spatially connected processes, how they are functioning at different scales, their impact on particular or specific places and spaces, as they give rise to new or evolving social and economic geographies.

1. Unfinished estates, housing
and spatial justice
Rob KitchinRob Kitchin
RIA, 23rd April 2013

2. Drivers/enablers of the bubble
• Demographics
E i th• Economic growth
• Neoliberal policy adoption
D l t d fi (d l t & t )– Deregulated finance (development & mortgages)
– Tax incentives; tax benefits
– Laissez-faire planning/over-zoningLaissez faire planning/over zoning
– Rolled back on Part V - forego social/affordable obligations
– Pro-growth, market-led, state facilitated, zero-sum development
– Self-regulated construction industry
• Cronyism, clientelism and localism
• Speculator capitalism (buy to let, buy to flip)
• Consumer panic (getting on the ladder)
• Tax generation (VAT, stamp duty, capital gains,
development levies)

3. 80000
90000
100000
50000
60000
70000
80000
Huge growth
10000
20000
30000
40000
Huge growth
in housing 0
1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
in housing
stock andstock and
house priceshouse prices

4. th POP!then POP!
five years of unwinding

5. Residential property price changes 2007-2013

6. Housing vacancy 2011 (Census)g y ( )
289,581 units
Oversupply
c.110,000 (6%
base rate)base rate)
9 counties >15%9 counties 15%
vacancy (exc.
holiday homes)
Source: CSO

7. • spatial justice Whereas social justice tends to
focus on the inequalities between people, spatialq p p p
justice focuses on the disparities between places.
Given the uneven spatial distribution of resourcesp
and rights, with some places better served than
others, spatial justice seeks a fairer redistribution.p j
Spatial justice also recognizes that some places
receive a disproportionate share of harmfulp p
practices that exposes the local population to risks,
such as the siting of a polluting industry, which itg g y
seeks to ameliorate.
Oxford Dictionary of Human Geography, 2013, 485Oxford Dictionary of Human Geography, 2013, 485

8. Unfinished estates: 2 876 (2011)Unfinished estates: 2,876 (2011)

9. Unfinished estates
• Number of unfinished estates 2012: 1,770 (definition change)
• 1,100 estates are in a ‘seriously problematic condition’
• Only 250 estates (8.5% of 1,770) are active
• 16,881 units vacant; 17,032 units still under-construction
• 421 estates not liable for property tax (units lacking decent
roads, lighting infrastructure, paving, sewage and water)
Change in occupancy 2010-2011
105 (3 6%) t t h d f ll i th l l f• 105 (3.6%) estates had a fall in the level of occupancy
• 1,536 (54%) estates no change in the level of occupancy
• 573 had a change of 1-2 ; 287 estates change of 3-5573 had a change of 1 2 ; 287 estates change of 3 5
• Vast majority of estates experienced very little change in the
level of occupancy between 2010 and 2011
• Top 100 estates (3.5%) with the most positive change in
occupancy accounted for 60.7% of all newly occupied units

10. Issues with unfinished estates
• Completion and maintenancep
• Health and safety
• Security• Security
• Anti-social behaviour
• Lack of services and public transport
• Building control and planning complianceg p g p
• Bonds and finance
• Negative equity• Negative equity
• Sense of place and community

11. Build quality and pyrite• Priory Hall q y pyPriory Hall
– Out of homes for >18 months
– 187 apartments deemed unsafe to live in187 apartments deemed unsafe to live in
• Pyrite
Estimates 20 60 000 homes– Estimates 20-60,000 homes
– DECLG claims 74 estates with 12,250
unitsunits

12. singhousorityh
Dublin
authocalaLoc
Limerick

13. Local authority housing Dublin CC: PPPsy g

14. Local authority housing Dublin CC: PPPs

15. Social housing waiting listg g
Housing needs 98,318
Homeless persons 2,348
Travellers 1,824
Persons living in accommodation that is unfit or materially unsuitable 1,708
P li i i d d d ti 8 534Persons living in overcrowded accommodation 8,534
Young persons living in institutional care or without family accommodation 538
Persons in need of accommodation for medical or compassionate grounds = 9,548
Older persons 2,266Older persons 2,266
Persons with a disability 1,315
Persons not reasonably able to meet the cost of the accommodation they are
occupying or obtain suitable alternative accommodation
65,643

16. Mortgage arrearsg g
http://www.centralbank.ie/polstats/stats/mortgagearrears/Documents/2012q4_ie_mortgage_arr
ears_statistics.pdf

17. Mortgage arrears Negative equityg g
• 792,096 total residential
g q y
• 2010:
mortgages in state
• 143,851 mortgages in
• 34% of mortgages in negative
equity (47.5% in 2011)143,851 mortgages in
arrears (18.2%); 94,488
more 90 days (11.5%)
• 52% of BTL mortgages in
negative equity
more 90 days (11.5%)
• Plus 42,031 restructured but
not in arrears (term
• Spatial trap
• Reduced labour marketnot in arrears (term
extension, reduced
payment interest only)
Reduced labour market
mobility
• Restricts recovering market topayment, interest only)
• 28,421 (18.9%) BTL
accounts in arrears of more
• Restricts recovering market to
FTBs and those not in
negative equityaccounts in arrears of more
than 90 days as of Dec 2012
negative equity

18. % Owner occupied with mortgage
Dublin
Cork
Galway

19. Post 2006 build2001-11 build
blinDuborkCo

20. Solutions to housing issuesg
• Slow decline rather than sudden collapseSlow decline rather than sudden collapse
• Minimal effort, minimal cost approach that gives
the impression of policy at work but to a largethe impression of policy-at-work, but to a large
degree pushes the problem down the road
W iti f k t ti• Waiting for market correction
• NAMA, SHLI, SRP, scale back of regeneration
• Neoliberalism in, neoliberalism and austerity out

21. NAMA
• The idea behind NAMA was to relieve Irish banks of their
impaired assets providing them with government-backedimpaired assets, providing them with government backed
bonds which they could use to borrow from the ECB, and
thus inject liquidity into the Irish banking system.
• It also had the effect of protecting both the banks and
developers from going bust quickly
• €73.6b of loans transferred
• 67% of loans relate to Irish development and land
• NAMA has paid on average 42.5% of the loan value for the
assets in its portfolio
• It’s largely a black box; it’s significantly overshadowing the
property market and its operation
• Focus is solely restoring market not spatial justice as with
RTCs in US

22. Social Housing Leasing Initiativeg g
• Launched in September 2009 to complement the work of
NAMANAMA
• Ties new social housing supply to market based mechanisms
and the private rental sectorand the private rental sector
• Properties are rented from the private sector for 20 years, and
used to accommodate households from local authority waitingused to accommodate households from local authority waiting
lists.
• Properties are to be tenanted managed and maintained byProperties are to be tenanted, managed and maintained by
the local authority, with the rent guaranteed for the whole
lease period
• After the twenty year period, the house will revert to the
landlord
• Barely makes a dent in social housing waiting list

23. Site Resolution Plans
• Partnership approach to estate completion
• All stakeholders (developers, banks, local authorities, residents,
estate management companies, Health and Safety Authority,
etc) produce a negotiated plan of actionetc) produce a negotiated plan of action
• Non-mandatory, voluntaristic, deregulated
Lack comp lsi e mechanisms• Lack compulsive mechanisms
• Time frames are suggestive not mandatory
N fli t l ti h i• No conflict resolution mechanisms
• Local authorities are being given no additional resources
L k f fi d i l i i d• Lack of finance and insolvency is ignored
• SRPs are likely to be slow and haphazard
f f €• The associated government fund of €5m is a paltry sum
• Focuses on tidying up and health and safety not larger issues

24. Conclusion
• There are a number of pressing spatial justice
issues relating to housing in Ireland
– Unfinished estates
– Build quality and compliance
– Stalled local authority housing projects
– Mortgage arrears and negative equity
• The approach to addressing them has largelye app oac to add ess g t e as a ge y
been a minimal effort, minimal cost effort
• The result is households and communities beingThe result is households and communities being
left to wither on the vine whilst government waits
for market correctionfor market correction
• Market correction is not happening any time soon

25. AIRO – open data/tools to understand crisis

26. Thanks
• Kitchin, R. O'Callaghan, C. and Gleeson, J. (in press) The new ruins of
I l d? U fi i h d t t i th t C lti Ti I t ti lIreland? Unfinished estates in the post-Celtic Tiger era. International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research
• Kitchin, R. (2013) Making informed decisions on future housing policy., ( ) g g p y
Housing Ireland
• Kitchin, R., Gleeson, J. and Dodge, M. (2012) Unfolding mapping
practices: A new epistemology for cartography Transactions of thepractices: A new epistemology for cartography Transactions of the
Institute of British Geographers.
• Kitchin, R., O’Callaghan, C., Boyle, M., Gleeson J. and Keaveney, K.
(2012) Placing neoliberalism: The rise and fall of Ireland’s Celtic Tiger.
Environment and Planning A 44: 1302 – 1326
• Kitchin, R., Gleeson, J. Keaveney, K. And O’Callaghan, C. (2010) AKitchin, R., Gleeson, J. Keaveney, K. And O Callaghan, C. (2010) A
Haunted Landscape: Housing and Ghost Estates in Post-Celtic Tiger
Ireland. NIRSA Working Paper 59.