This article is from page 17 of the 2012-01-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 17 JPG
CLARE County Council are still awaiting any formal contact from the Department of the Environment advising them which unfinished housing estate in Clare will be exempted from the € 100 housing levy.
The local authority confirmed last night that, although they have received a number of queries from the public about the issue, the department is yet to give them any indication who will pay and who will not.
Last year seven housing estates in Clare wee given Category Four status by the Department of the Environment – which means that they are unfinished housing estates where there is no chance that the developer will be able to finish the estate. It had been speculated that all houses in category four housing estates will be exempted form the € 100 charge.
Speaking at last nights meeting of Clare County Council, Director of Services, Nora Kaye, said that Clare County Council is yet to receive any information what-so-ever from the Department of the Environment concerning possible exemptions .
“The council did have a roll in trying to categories the estate of unfinished estates in the county. There were seven in category four. I am not aware of the rational behind the list that the Minister for the Environment is compiling at the moment and whether that has any connection to the list produced last year,” she said.
“We have not been contacted by the department about this. We have not been asked for statistics from the de- partment about this list. We are trying to determine for ourselves what estates will be categorisesd in what list.“We are getting a lot of queries from the public about their lists and we understand that clarification is coming from the department in the coming days and that would be a welcome move. This does not mean that these are ghost estates – this means that they are unfinished.”
Shannon Cllr Gerry Flynn (IND) described it as “lunacy” that the details of who must pay this charge have not yet been finalised, even though some people have already paid the charge.
“It is absolute lunacy that the Minister for the Environment would not have the list out there. This charge came into effect on the first of January,” he said.