Galway residents have expressed serious concern at proposals to route a new bypass around the city that will result in the demolition of between 30 and 130 homes. Galway County Council issued letters to about 300 homes in late January alerting them that their properties may lie within the path of one of six proposed routes for the new N6 Galway City Transport Project designed to ease congestion in the city.
Chief among some residents’ concerns is how the compulsory purchase order (CPO) scheme would work for those in negative equity, ie where more is owed on a property than its current value. CPOs offer homeowners prevailing market values for their properties at the time the scheme gets the go ahead. With property market values considerably lower following the downturn, homeowners in negative equity are concerned they will be paid existing market values but be left owing the outstanding debt on their mortgages.
The proposed new routes for the bypass – which is expected to cost between €500 million and €750 million under public private partnership – will affect homes in Barna, Bushypark, Menlo, Newcastle, Dangan, Westside and Terryland. According to one resident: “Lots of people traded up to these areas during the boom, and even in a best-case scenario where the CPO might just cover what’s owed on a property, these homeowners will lose their preferred tracker rates, and if they had fallen into arrears at any point they may not be offered new credit arrangements by banks to borrow on their next home.”
Public consultation
Following public consultation the preferred route is expected to be chosen by April after which planning will be sought. Eileen McCarthy of Arup Consulting Engineers overseers for the project says the process could take a minimum of two years, at which time market values could have increased further.
"You have to remember the planning application for this project was launched originally in 2006 and there has still been no progress, so we can't say the market won't be back to where it was when the road gets the go ahead," McCarthy told The Irish Times. She said that under the current CPO scheme there is no provision for properties in negative equity and the market value paid is a constant. However, there are other more "subjective" provisions such as disturbance, injurious affection and severance whereby each property owner can make their case for individual compensation with the aid of independent legal advice which will be reimbursed by the council.
Galway West TD Noel Grealish spoke out this week against the prolonged planning process for the new bypass. Grealish told the Galway Advertiser the drawing up of the latest new routes and their potential impact was "a debacle" and "crazy".The proposed new routing follows a Bord Pleanala refusal of permission for the western section on environmental grounds, and the Supreme Court quashed permission for the eastern section. *
* This article was edited on Thursday, February 12th, 2015
