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The message is no longer in the box, says ISABEL MORTON

28.09.11

The bulletin is no longer in the box, says ISABEL MORTON  

THERE ARE very few things about this depression, which have given me cause for glee, but the demise of the glass box Nautical galley extension is one of them.

I’ve yet to see one that looks at ease with the property to which it’s been seconded. They tend to look like Perspex storage boxes that demolish off the back of a Martian’s flying saucer and landed unceremoniously in the put up gardens of earthling homes.

They popped up everywhere during the boom years but are notably prevalent in the red-brick Dublin 6 area, where gargantuan edifices were often stuck on to the back of otherwise impeccably normal Victorian and Edwardian terraced and semi-removed properties. (If you don’t believe me, try looking via the Birdseye believe on Google Maps and you’ll soon see what I mean.)

When these triple-glazed structures were first completed, their proud owners often hosted a series of “uncertain kitchen supper parties” to show off their architect-designed ell and bore their guests to tears with guided tours, including demonstrations of the capable-home technology, designer kitchen appliances and sympathetic lighting.

Source: Irish Times

Prime housing lots are hostage to bureaucratic inaction

26.09.11

The ILA was the supervision agency charged with managing and leasing public acreage, and it was responsible for getting the parcels zoned for residential construction and then marketing them to developers. But in pursuit only a few tracts were divided, rezoned and marketed. The biggest of these, so far, was a place near Rosh Ha'ayin destined for 1,200 apartments in stoned-rise buildings plus 300,000 square meters of commercial leeway.

Tens of thousands of apartment could be built with subordinate to ease on the 9,000 dunams, out of the total of 20,000 dunams returned to the stately, that are suitable for building - if only the land were rezoned and sold.

These count land at Kibbutz Afek, near the Haifa suburb of Kiryat Bialik, on which 4,300 homes could be built. Kibbutz Sa'ar, close-fisted Nahariya, has enough land for 2,400 residences. The acreage at Kibbutz Nir Eliyahu, adjacent to Kfar Sava, could column 1,200 housing units. Other tracts of significant size are located at Kibbutz Bahan, close to being Bat Hefer, and near Tirat Carmel.

Source: Ha'aretz