€88k water connection fee for housing development

A developer who is proposing to build nine houses in Nenagh is being charged €87,995 by Irish Water for a water connection to the scheme, Councillor Seamus Morris told the February meeting of the Nenagh Municipal District.
Councillor Morris said the "shocking" charge comes at a time when there was a crying need for extra houses in the town, but developers were being put off building homes due to such charges.
"Irish Water are hammering people," he said, saying the charge meant an extra cost of €9,766 on each of the nine houses – a cost that would probably be put on the end price of each unit, making it more difficult for young people to get on the housing ladder.
Councillor Morris said Tipperary County Council was doing a lot of good work to try to encourage house building in the town by introducing incentives such as reducing development fees.
But the local authority may as well give up on its efforts because it was very hard for developers to build when Irish Water was asking for €88,000 for an 800 metre long water connection for the proposed nine house scheme.
Councillor Rocky McGrath said the charge as claimed by Councillor Morris would “roast” any developer. "It's ridiculous. Irish Water need to be brought to their senses."
Councillor Hughie McGrath said that by the time developers passed on the extra costs now associated with building new houses, the purchase price would be way beyond what people seeking to buy their first home could afford.
Meanwhile, Brian Beck, a Senior Planner with the council, said the local authority was very conscious of the need to get new houses built in the main towns of Tipperary.
However, there had been instances were housing scheme granted planning permission by the council were being refused on appeal to An Bord Pleanala due to what the board viewed as too low a density in relation to projects. The council was granting permissions on schemes for 20 and 25 houses per hectacre, but the planning board was viewing such densities as too low.
"This is an issue we have brought to the attention of An Bord Pleanala and the Planning Regulator and Department of the Environment. We have expressed the concerns of the elected members on this," said Mr Beck.
He said there had been a number of instances in Clonmel where the board had refused housing schemes on the basis of what it viewed as insufficiently high densities. While the council was granting permissions on the basis of its own County Development Plan, the planning board was not taking the objectives of the plan into account and was seeking higher densisties for schemes.
Councillor Morris said the stance being taken by the planning board went against all the efforts that councillors in Tipperary have made to keep densities in the county down. "This also leaves us open for people to make spurious objections to housing schemes," he said.
He said there were three major housing schemes being held up in Clonmel over density issues. "This is a crazy situation."
Councillor Hughie McGrath said the insistence by an Bord Pleanala for higher density housing schemes should not result in new home owners having to forsake a front garden. People deserved more than having their front door opening onto a public footpath.
Councillor Michael O' Meara said the planning office in the council was going to be very busy over the coming years as a new government had been given a mandate by the people for a record house building programme.
Mr Beck warned that "bog standard" schemes were not going to be acceptable to the council. High quality designed schemes were now paramount and this was something developers needed to be aware of before coming to meet planners with proposals.