Council agrees housing levies despite wide range of protesters

Donal Hickey

Around 50 objectors, including the IFA, ICMSA and the Irish Rural Dwellers’ Association, described the levies as a new form of taxation on the building of family homes.

Covering water, sewerage and other charges, levies could cost between 4,000 and 5,000 per house being built, depending on the house size of the house. Charges include 2,720 for sewage services and 1,355 for water.

There will also be a new charge of 1,000 or 7.50 per square metre, whichever is is the greater, for holiday homes.

Money raised will be used to provide playgrounds, walkways, footpaths, beach improvements and other facilities for communities.

County manager Martin Riordan said demand was growing for such facilities, which were not included in the council’s normal budget, and there would have to be ways of paying for them.

Independent Cllr Brendan Cronin, chairman of the council’s special committee on planning, said only two submissions were received when a draft of the levies was put out for public consultation. The submissions broadly welcomed the proposals.

Even though a dairy farmer himself, he berated the farming organisations for not sending in submissions.

“If you’re representing me or my neighbour, you should have made submissions. That’s the bottom line,” Mr Cronin told the objecting farmers in the chamber. “When our milk price was reduced two months ago, you didn’t stage any protest or picket.”

Mr Cronin’s proposal that the levies be adopted, with the following two amendments, was agreed on a 17-5 vote:

That a house measuring less than 130 sq metres on an unserviced site be totally exempt.

There would be no increase in levies during the lifetime of the council, until 2009 at the earliest.

He said the council could not place any further burdens on less well-off people, but people building 250,000 houses should have no difficulty in paying the levy. “The levy wouldn’t pay for the first round of drinks at the house warming party,” he said.

Independent Cllrs Michael and Danny Healy-Rae opposed any charges on people building modest houses in rural areas, claiming charges would be another blow to rural Ireland.