Commercial is on it’s knees, with a massive oversupply in Dublin.
Residential housing (as opposed to apartments) is experiencing a supply shortage.
Given many commercial premises are in residential (or semi-residential) areas, is it not a really obvious solution to make it easier - and by that I mean cheaper - for owners of commercial premises to get planning permission etc to switch use ?
The current cost of doing so is tens of thousands before even one alteration is started.
Not only would that make the market more fluid, but it would employ thousands of unemployed former builders.
Also some empty commercial buildings could make fantastic residencies.
This course of action seems blatently obvious to me, so I have to ask you ‘what am I missing ?’.
For instance 5 Wilton Place looked really class, and there was already a residential apartment on the top floor. It’s worth noting that the ICS sought planning permission to change this single floor from residential to office but it was turned down
To me the fact that they refused this very minor change indicates that DCC is well disposed to having more residential in the D2 Georgian area - or is this a stretch?
He builder working on our Georgian office building told me he has done several quotes recently for people to reconvert Georgians around Merrion sq/Fitzwilliam sq/Baggot st recently.
This is something I’m very interested in having done this before twice (for work) and I’ve been watching the D2 Georgian market closely. The problem is IMO rents have reached the bottom (and are definitely going to overshoot downwards) but it’s still the same old story of asking prices not matching up. Take this property for example:
The main house and mews combined are asking €33k @ 8psqf and it’s been on the market for a long time. A normal valuation would price this at about €450K and if I could get it at that price I’d cut them a cheque tomorrow but there’s no way they’ll accept that amount despite the fact that their rental asking effectively values it thus.
I’m not sure this would be such a good idea on a macro level. If we start changing premises from commercial to residential, won’t that mean commercial rents end up being higher?
I think there is a great opportunity to drive down the cost of doing business in Ireland. Shouldn’t there be more small businesses starting up? Tiny pizzerias, bakeries, coffee and vegetable shops, etc should be popping up everywhere as people get laid off in other areas. Except the cost of doing business in Ireland seems to be just too high. Obviously this also includes rates, insurance, wages and professional services.
I see far too many commercial premises with to let signs, so I think we all agree that there is an imbalance there somewhere, but I’m not sure that converting them to residential is the right way to go about it.
I presume the rates the local authority receives (even at 50% if vacant) when the premises is designated commercial would be far in excess of any potential residential property tax so that would influence its willingness to change the zoning?
One would think so, but that’s not how the incumbent mindset works.
A couple of years back, the Rockbrook South Central ghost estate in Sandyford had a notice on it for a planning permission request to convert live/work units to apartments, so that they could join the stock of unsold and unlet apartments in the same blocks, next to the unfinished apartments in the half-built blocks, just beside the unbuilt apartments that were supposed to occupy the neighbouring hole in the ground. You can never have too many apartments in outer suburbia.
Some day, the penny might drop re two-storey houses within a stones throw of O’Connell st (with single storey bungalows only a little further out) and the need to build 8 storey apartment blocks in Stepaside.
The asking prices on these look high and that’s before considering any of the refurb costs to convert.
Do pinsters really believe that the supply of residential property has shrunk to the level where converting commercial to residential is a viable option?
macannrb wrote:
I’m not sure this would be such a good idea on a macro level. If we start changing premises from commercial to residential, won’t that mean commercial rents end up being higher?
I think there is a great opportunity to drive down the cost of doing business in Ireland. Shouldn’t there be more small businesses starting up? Tiny pizzerias, bakeries, coffee and vegetable shops, etc should be popping up everywhere as people get laid off in other areas. Except the cost of doing business in Ireland seems to be just too high. Obviously this also includes rates, insurance, wages and professional services.
I see far too many commercial premises with to let signs, so I think we all agree that there is an imbalance there somewhere, but I’m not sure that converting them to residential is the right way to go about it.
Was’t there some think tank competition about two years ago to come up with ideas for the Ghost Estates?
Cannot recalll any brilliant schemes, mind you.
Maybe it’s time for a Round Two for commercial oversupply ideas - I’d say an oversupply that will be with us for a good while yet. Even in the bubbliest bubble times I often wondered just how many of the commercial units below
apartment blocks could ever be viable. There just seemed so many of them, often with already closed up existing
premises around each corner.
