SURVEY OF UNFINISHED HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS

Transcription

1 SURVEY OF UNFINISHED HOUSING DEVELOPMENTS GUIDE FOR HOUSING INSPECTOR SURVEYORS 1 BACKGROUND 2 2 DEFINITIONS 3 3 ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES 4 4 THE INFORMATION TO BE COLLECTED 6 ANNEX (A) SURVEY SPREADSHEET TO BE COMPLETED 1

2 1 BACKGROUND The recent economic downturn has created a situation where many developers have been unable or unwilling to complete housing developments (estates and apartments). This has led to undesirable situations where for example some residents are living in partially developed housing developments with little immediate prospect of their development being completed in the near future. Also, in some cases significant health and safety issues may exist on inactive developments. The Department is preparing a policy document that is intended to assist local authorities and other bodies in dealing with the problems associated with vacant and uncompleted housing, and incomplete infrastructure in housing developments that are under construction or where construction has stopped. One of the current substantial difficulties in developing policy is that there is no definitive information about the scale, nature and location of the vacant/unfinished housing problem that has national coverage. Estimates of the number of vacant dwellings 1 in Ireland range from over in aggregate in both urban and rural areas, to around 35,000 in housing developments in mainly urban areas. This survey will enable the Department to get an accurate estimate of the numbers involved in unfinished housing developments and provide information about the location and nature of the problem, all of which will be important inputs into the policy currently being developed. The data from the survey will also be inputted into a planning Geographical Information System (GIS). A pilot study was undertaken in County Laois to test an approach (methodology) to collecting relevant information about vacant/incomplete housing and services in unfinished developments. The pilot study has been completed and the lessons learned have formed the basis for a national roll out of the survey and for the contents of this document. The Department s Housing Inspectors regularly visit housing developments under construction in Ireland where one or more dwellings/apartments (hereafter referred to as dwellings) are offered for sale and where an application for a Floor Area Compliance Certificate (FACC) has been made. In order to obtain a FACC the dwelling(s) must be new, have a floor between 38m² and 125m², and 1 In housing developments which are unfinished (under construction or where construction has halted) as well as in fully completed developments. 2

3 be built in accordance with the standards set out. In practice this means that the Inspectors visit the large majority of housing developments. However in order to get a comprehensive overall picture of the vacant/unfinished housing situation it would be necessary to obtain information about not only the FACC developments but also about those developments where no application for a FACC has been made (non-facc developments) 2, e.g. where all dwelling exceed 125m² or dwellings are built to let only. This document provides guidance for the Housing Inspectors who will visit both FACC and non- FACC housing developments to undertake the survey. 2 DEFINITIONS The survey is focussed on housing matters and thus in the comments below, the status of other development types such as shops, crèches, office or other non-residential uses are not being expressly included in the survey, although the presence of other non-residential elements of mixed use schemes can be noted by comments on the survey spreadsheet. A housing development would comprise two or more dwellings set out in free standing, semidetached, terraced, duplex and/or apartment formats. An unfinished housing development is one where the approved dwellings and their associated services and amenities have not been completed and occupied. In order to create clarity it is necessary to elaborate on the two key underlined words. Completed in this context does not necessarily mean that all the works required in terms of building regulations and/or the planning permission have been completed. 3 Minor outstanding works, such as individual house electricity connections, entrance gates, decoration etc. would not be regarded as significant. A development will be regarded as finished if an Inspector considers, on the basis of a normal visual on-site inspection, that the following have been substantially completed: dwellings, roads and footpaths, lighting, water supply, waste water infrastructure, open spaces, as defined for the purposes of this survey. 2 It is estimated that FACC developments comprise about 90% of all the housing developments currently under construction or which are unfinished but on which no construction activity is taking place. 3 Planning applications may well have many conditions attached ( are not uncommon) many of which relate to different physical aspects of a project. It would be unrealistic and unnecessary to expect that as part of this survey the Inspectors become familiar with every relevant condition and then attempts to see if the conditions have been fully or partially met. 3

4 In cases where one or more phases of a development have been completed but no work has commenced on subsequent phases, then the development would be regarded as being unfinished. Housing developments that may be referred to as recently completed housing developments (three years or less), with unoccupied dwellings, will be included in the survey. Developments regarded as finished for more than three years, but where a small number of the dwellings (less than10%) have never been occupied, will not be included. Such developments with more than 10% unoccupied will be included. Determination by an Inspector of the state of completion of dwellings or any other aspect of a development will not imply any particular level of compliance with building regulations or planning permissions. Guidance on occupied is given in below 3 ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES The main tasks to be undertaken by the key participants in the survey are set out below. Project Steering Committee A Project Steering Committee has been established to monitor progress and to provide overall guidance to the project. The Committee comprises representatives from the Housing and Planning Inspectorates, local authorities and the National Building Agency. The Housing Inspectors The Inspector s main task is to complete a Excel spreadsheet relating to each housing development (see Annex (A)). This will involve the following tasks. Identify all the uncompleted or recently completed housing developments (see definitions above) in the areas assigned to be surveyed. Undertake the field surveys in an efficient and cost effective manner. In cases where the Inspector knows or suspects that an uncompleted housing development comprises holiday homes (after making reasonable enquiries) the Inspector should survey the development and indicate in the comments space provided in the spreadsheet that it would appear to be a holiday home. 4

5 Visit and survey the identified developments and fill in the standard Excel spreadsheet (one for each housing development). Obtain the Local Authority Planning Department reference number for the development. Obtain a copy of the overall approved development layout plan(s) 4 in digital form in order to identify the total number of approved dwellings and the number of approved open spaces. The digital copy of the layout plan should if possible be included into the spreadsheet or a hyperlink to the local authority web site that contains an image of the layout plan should be indicated. Let their manager know if they encounter any difficulties or need clarification on any issue as soon as practical. Record any queries or comments into the appropriate parts of the spreadsheet Send their spreadsheets with weekly reports to their Manager. Respond to queries as they may arise from time to time. Finalise spreadsheets and submit to their Manager as soon as possible. Housing Inspectorate Managers (Regional Engineering Inspectors) The Manager s tasks are: To agree work programmes relevant to survey with the Inspectors in their area; To provide the Inspectors with contact details of persons in the planning or other sections of the local authorities for which the Inspectors have responsibility; To provide such guidance and advice to the Inspectors as may be necessary; To obtain clarifications from members of the Steering Committee if necessary; To review the completed survey spreadsheets and if necessary obtain clarifications from the Inspectors; To send by the completed reviewed spreadsheets to Bruce McCormack, Colum O Ruanaidh and Gabriel Moloney; Provide a brief report indicating any problems, difficulties or concerns they may have regarding the coverage, quality of responses or any other relevant matter. When completed the reports should be sent by to Bruce, Colum and Gabriel; To respond to queries as they may arise from time to time. Planning Inspectorate (Custom House) The Planners are responsible for: Notifying local authorities of the survey and obtaining contact names and details of persons in the planning or other sections with whom the Inspectors can make contact. Receiving the spreadsheets and ensuring that they are adequately incorporated into a GIS system and other appropriate database; 4 Only approved layouts are of relevance. Layouts linked to outline planning permissions are not of any relevance in this context. 5

6 Undertaking such analyses of the survey data as may be necessary and appropriate. Local Authorities Local authorities will be responsible for: Sharing their data as regards unfinished housing developments; Where requested, to assist in identifying the operative planning permission for unfinished housing developments, the approved layout and approved scale of development (housing units); Where requested, to assist in site identification and access. 4 THE INFORMATION TO BE COLLECTED An example of the information to be collected about each unfinished housing development is set out in tabular form in Annex (A). All Inspectors will be provided with this template in Excel spreadsheet form and would need to fill their responses into the spreadsheet. For consistency and quality control, certain cells in the spreadsheet have been locked. The spreadsheet has four columns. Column 1 the question/issue number; Column 2 the question or issue. Definitions of terms and other issues are dealt with in the text below; Column 3 the area into which the Inspector needs to fill in the survey findings; Column 4 an area into which the Inspector can make comments in relation to each question/issue. There is however no necessity to provide comments. An Inspector may feel the need to provide relevant comments if they would like to provide some degree of clarity regarding the responses in Column 3, or if the Inspector has queries that relate to the question/issue they would like to highlight. The spreadsheet also contains areas for inserting where possible an image(s) of the overall approved layout plan(s) or providing a hyper link to the relevant local authority planning web site which shows the layout plan(s). In any survey it is important that the surveyors adopt a standardised approach in order to ensure comparability of the results. One of the important ways in which to obtain such an approach is to define terms and, where appropriate, to set out what has to be done to complete the various questions in the survey. 6

7 The guidance set out below follows the numbered points in the spreadsheet set out in Annex (A). Department Housing Project Number (No. 1 in the table in Annex (A)) This is the number(s) allocated to the project in the Housing Inspector s filing system. Name of Development (No 2) The name should be as provided in the planning application. Geographic Location (No 3) This information is needed so that the information collected about developments can be incorporated into a planning Geographical Information System (GIS) database. Street Address/Townland (No 3.1) Ideally a street number and name should be recorded. In some cases no street number may exist in which case just the street name only would be recorded. In the case of larger developments in particular there may be more than one named street within the incomplete development. It would be necessary to indicate only one street name. If it is not possible to identify a street number or name then if possible the townland name should be identified and inserted into the spreadsheet. Town, Village, Suburb Name (No 3.2) In the overwhelming majority of cases there should be no difficulty in recording this information. Coordinates (No 3.3) Coordinates provide information about exact locations (i.e. position on the earth surface) and are necessary to locate developments in the Department s GIS system. Coordinates can be obtained using the Ordnance Survey Ireland web site. The steps to follow are set out below. Step 1 Open the OSi home page by typing osi.ie into Google Step 2 Double click on the Map of Ireland text which is displayed. A map of the whole of the island of Ireland will open. 7

8 Step 3 Using the Zoom In button (circle with a +) 5 and the pan button (indicated by a +) 6 in the Menu locate the suburb, town or village in which the development is located. This can be easily done based on the maps which are displayed. As one keeps zooming in the map will be replaced by aerial photography and using the photo images the exact position of a development can be located. Step 4 At the bottom left corner of the screen will be a box titled Status. Within this box there are the XY coordinates that reflect the position of the cross hairs, which will be positioned over the housing development. The two six figure numbers (separated by a comma) should be typed into the Excel spreadsheet. If any Inspector has a difficulty identifying the coordinates for a development he/she can contact Bruce McCormack ( , bruce.mccormack@environ.ie) or Colum O Ruanaidh ( , colum.oruanaidh@environ.ie). Planning File Reference (No 4) Number (No 4.1) The reference number of the planning permission enabling the development of each site must be obtained. Every effort should be made to obtain the reference number of the master permission, with if possible the numbers of any other permission that gives approval to a change in the number of dwellings or open spaces in the development. The reference number may be available on the FACC files or can be obtained from the local authority planning website. If clarification or assistance is required then the designated contact person in the Local Authority may be contacted. Date of Approval (No 4.2) In most cases there will be only one original or master planning approval given and this will relate to the overall project where a single overall layout plan is involved. The date of the original/master planning application would need to be inserted into the spreadsheet in the form day, month, year (eg 24 March 2006). Housing Development Form/Type (No 5) 5 Zooming in (ie showing maps which indicate more and more detail) is achieved by holding down the left side button on a mouse and dragging to create a rectangle (highlighted in red in the OSi system). After releasing the mouse button the next map image which will be displayed will cover just the area within the rectangle. 6 Holding down the left button on a mouse and moving the mouse will result in the whole map moving in the direction of movement of the mouse. Panning will stop when the left button is released. 8

9 Five types of dwelling are identified, namely, single freestanding, semi-detached, terrace, duplex and apartment. The number of dwellings in each category should be obtained by counting the number of proposed dwellings on the main/master approved layout plan(s). In the case of many local authorities the layout plans can be viewed in the planning section of their web site. In the case of those local authorities where it is not possible to obtain the layout plan(s) from the web sites it will be necessary to make contact with the designated contact person in the local authority and ask to see the relevant plan(s). Wherever possible a copy of the approved layout plan(s) can be downloaded from the web site and included into the spreadsheet, or the relevant hyper link to the part of the local authority s web site which shows the layout plan(s) could be inserted into the spreadsheet. Dwelling Completion Status (No 6) In the case of each dwelling 7 a number of levels of completion are to be recorded. Complete and Occupied (6.1.1) Refer to the discussion regarding what is a complete dwelling as set out in section 2 above. In the case of each completed dwelling it is necessary to record whether or not the dwelling is occupied. A dwelling may be regarded as being occupied if it shows signs of habitation such as having furniture, curtains, car in driveway, washing hanging out to dry, a dog in the garden, lights on etc. If the Inspector is in any doubt regarding occupation it would be appropriate to ask locally about the status of the dwelling. Complete and Vacant (No 6.1.2) A vacant dwelling is one that although apparently habitable does not display all or most of the signs of occupation as indicated above. Near Complete (Roofed and Weathertight to Habitable) (No 6.2) In this case the dwelling is weathertight but is not yet complete. In the case of each dwelling at this stage it is necessary to indicate whether or not there is any building activity taking place on this dwelling (Nos and 6.2.2). Wall Plate (Wallplate to Roofed and Weathertight) (No 6.3) 7 The term dwelling is used for this section in parenthesis because the survey will record the situation in relation to dwellings which may be in various stages of completion, from pre-dpc level only to fully habitable. Thus the term as used here may refer to virtual dwellings. 9

10 If the dwelling is at wall plate stage and beyond but is not yet weathertight (eg no, windows etc) then the dwelling should be recorded as being at the wall plate stage. In the case of each dwelling at this wall plate stage it is necessary to indicate whether or not there is any building activity taking place on this dwelling (Nos and 6.3.2). DPC Complete (DPC Level to Wallplate Level) (No 6.4) If the DPC has been fully laid but the dwelling has not reached the wall plate stage as defined above then the dwelling should be recorded as being at the DPC stage. In the case of each dwelling at this stage it is necessary to record whether or not there is any building activity taking place (Nos and 6.4.2). Foundation to DPC Level (No 6.5) In the case of each dwelling at this stage it is necessary to record whether or not there is any building activity taking place (Nos and 6.5.2). No Construction Commenced (No 6.6) In this case no construction work has commenced. Road, Access and Lighting Status (No 7) This section of the survey records the extent to which the dwellings in the development are served by roads, footpaths and lighting at varying stages of completion. Roads Complete and in Service (No 7.1) In the case of each dwelling, all of the roadways which are required to service that dwelling (ie from the public road to the dwelling ) need to have all courses (ie sub-base, base, final pavement) for the roads serving that dwelling to be classified as being complete. Base/Binder Course Level (No 7.2) If any part of the roadways servicing a dwelling have only base course or a binder course (ie no final surface pavement) the relevant dwelling should be recorded as being served by roads at base/binder course stage only. No Roads or Pre-base Level Course (No 7.3) If any part of the roadways servicing a dwelling have any road works which are below the base/binder course level (ie pre-base course) or have no works undertaken at all then the dwelling should be classified into this category. 10

11 Footpaths (No 7.4) In the case of each dwelling, it is necessary to indicate if all of the footpaths/pedestrian accesses required to service that dwelling are complete (No 7.4.1) or incomplete (No 7.4.2). Lighting (7.5) In the case of each dwelling, it is necessary to indicate if all the public lighting standards are installed to light roadways and footpaths are complete (No 7.5.1) or incomplete (No 7.5.2). Water Services (No 8) Water (No 8.1) Record the number of dwellings (occupied or vacant) that have full water supply. Waste Water (No 8.2) Record the number of dwellings (occupied or vacant) that have full access to a waste water sewer. Storm Water (No 8.3) Provide an indication/estimate of the level of completion of the stormwater infrastructure for the project as a whole; complete (No 8.3.1), substantially complete (ie %) (No 8.3.2) or untouched/substantially untouched (less than 50%) (No 8.3.3). Open Space (No 9) Number (No 9.1) The number of open spaces can be obtained from the overall estate layout plan. Development Status of Open Space Areas (No 9.2) The intention here is to get an idea regarding the level/stage of development of all the open spaces identified in the overall master layout plan(s). Completed (No 9.2.1) A completed open space is an area which has been contoured (levelled) and grassed or seeded, or possibly hardened (fully or partially). Levelled, not seeded or hardened (No 9.2.2) An open space may be levelled but no seeding (or hardening) has been undertaken in which case it is recorded as such. In order to record an open space as being levelled it is necessary that the whole open space has been levelled, possibly apart from some minor edge areas. 11

12 Untouched/substantially untouched (No 9.2.3) An open space which is classified as untouched or substantially untouched is an area in which in all or at least half of the space no attempt has been made to prepare the open space. Inactive or Active Site (No 10) Construction activity taking place on site (yes/no). Inspector s Name (No 11) If more than one Inspector participated in the inspection then all the Inspectors names should be recorded. Date of Survey Completion (No 12) If the site was visited more than once on different days in order to undertake this survey then only the date of the final visit should be recorded. Any Overall Comments (No 13) Space is provided for any general comments that the Inspector may wish to make on any aspect of the survey. If it would appear that the development constitutes holiday homes then this should be recorded here. Digital Copy of Layout Plan(s) (No 14) A hyperlink to the site layout on the local authority planning website can be inserted where available (6/5/10) 12

13 ANNEX (A) SURVEY SPREADSHEET TO BE COMPLETED (Excel version to be provided to Inspectors) Questions / Issues (see the Guide for information about the questions/issues and how to fill in the form) Responses (example) Comments / Remarks 1 Department Housing Project Number Name of Development The Firs 3 Geographic Location 3.1 Street address/townland 23 Fox Road 3.2 Town, village, suburb Athy 3.3 Coordinates using OSi web site (x y coordinates) , Planning File Reference 4.1 Number 1234/ Date(s) of approval 25/06/ /03/2007 Original permission 105 dwellings. Second permission - 30 extra dwellings 5 Housing Development Form/Type 5.1 Single dwellings Semi-detached Terrace Duplex Apartment 0 TOTAL Dwelling' Completions Status Complete & occupied Complete & vacant Near Complete - no building activity Near Complete - building activity taking place Wall Plate - no building activity Wall Plate - building activity taking place DPC complete - no building activity DPC Complete - building activity taking place Foundation to DPC level no building activity taking place Foundation to DPC level building activity taking place No construction commenced 8 13

14 TOTAL 135 Roads, Footpaths & Lighting Status (number of 'dwellings' 7 served) 7.1 Roads - Complete and in service Roads - Base/binder course Roads - No roads or pre-base course 20 TOTAL Footpaths - complete Footpaths - not complete 90 TOTAL Lighting - compete Lighting - not complete 100 TOTAL Water Services Status (number of 'dwellings' served) 8.1 Potable water supply fully operational Waste water system fully operational Stormwater - Complete / OR Stormwater - Substantially complete (50%+) / OR Yes Stormwater - Incomplete (less than 50%) 9 Open Space 9.1 Number of open space areas planned in overall project (identified from layout plan) OS Areas - fully complete OS areas - levelled, not seeded or hardened OS Areas - Untouched / substantially untouched 2 TOTAL 5 10 Active or Inactive Site (Yes /No) Yes 11 Inspector Name 12 Date of Survey Completion 13 Any Overall Comments 14 Digital copy of Layout Plan(s) Image(s) to be inserted into the area below or Hyperlink to layout plan(s) on local authority web site No problems were encountered undertaking the survey. 14

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