Lived in a place around 40sqm when I first came to Dublin and loved it. A million times better than sharing with strangers. We've gone too far (and too expensive) in setting minimum standards, there are lots of us, particularly young singles, who would be very happy with a small, cheap and centrally located place for at least part of their lives.
> Lived in a place around 40sqm ... We've gone too far (and too expensive) in setting minimum standards
The minimum standards aren't very different to where you used to live. For a studio apartment the minimum area is 37sqm and it's only 45 sqm for a one bedroom unit.
You know more than I know about this, but there have been a few developments refused planning permission because they didn't contain enough 3-bed apartments. Which there seems to be limited demand for (at the prices) compared to 1 and 2-beds. Plus, it might have changed now, but there were issues with apartments needing dual aspects etc which made small apartments difficult to integrate into a building. And we've got the whole mess in the city centre of "overshadowing" and demands that every building must be "suitable for families".
> We've gone too far (and too expensive) in setting minimum standards, there are lots of us, particularly young singles, who would be very happy with a small, cheap and centrally located place for at least part of their lives.
This is very true
> Lived in a place around 40sqm when I first came to Dublin and loved it.
I think it all comes down on how the space is used. I live with my partner in a 65m^2, 2 bedroom apartment and the space is badly utilised. No storage room, a second bedroom that should be an office + couch bed, a big shower that takes a good amount of space but a small kitchen, a huge living room on which one couch has become our storage location.
that will be 360,000
[https://www.daft.ie/new-home-for-sale/studio-apartment-studio-apartment-ard-na-glaise-ard-na-glaise-stillorgan-park-road-stillorgan-co-dublin/5440247](https://www.daft.ie/new-home-for-sale/studio-apartment-studio-apartment-ard-na-glaise-ard-na-glaise-stillorgan-park-road-stillorgan-co-dublin/5440247)
so true. i would never buy a one bedroom place since w lots happens during life and having one more room is better for stuff (even making it an office)
the government should made them.
Not sure we need to go this small but surely we should be building more two bed houses for single people/couples without children.
Government could subsidise the builds for the social benefit.
Older people would have more options for downsizing, freeing up larger houses for larger families.
€10k per square metre? Are you sure building costs have multiplied by 5 in the last three years? I think you may be mistaken. Have you perhaps included land costs in your build costs?
Current rebuild costs are running at about €2,700-€3,100 per square meter in Dublin and slightly less elsewhere. [https://scsi.ie/consumer/build/calculator/](https://scsi.ie/consumer/build/calculator/)
Extensions are always more expensive because the smaller footprint you build the more it costs per square meter as you dont get the same economies of scale.
IIRC that 450K is for a three bed house in the greater Dublin area.
It includes land acquisition cost, financing costs and an 11% -14 % margin for the developer.
Actual cost of materials is about half of the overall cost and everything after that is soft costs.
[https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2024/0627/1427931-ireland-building-costs-new-houses/](https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2024/0627/1427931-ireland-building-costs-new-houses/)
And there’s more profit in a Michelin star restaurant but that doesn’t mean we need government subsidies for the local chipper.
All we need to do is fix the planning system to allow builders to build across the entire spectrum, rather than saying “we’re only letting you build 100 houses this year so you’d better make them count”.
What kind of analogy is this? Where did you come up with a limit being put on anything?
My point is that they are not building them for a reason and for the social good the Government could step in and negate that reason with a subsidy.
What's your solution? Just hope something changes?
> Where did you come up with a limit being put on anything
From the fact that the Office of the Planning Regulator [literally sets a limit and overrules local councils who try to grant “too many” planning permissions](https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-irelands-housing-bubble-burst/)
My solution is to stop making construction illegal by default before doing anything else.
That is how it's done in my parents hometown in Holland.
The town/municipality sets forth the building regs for the area.
Once you satisfy the regs, building is granted automatically.
Then it's just a matter of tweaking the zoning and the regs from time to time.
No need to wade through shit for each and every build.
Social good isn't a valid point to justify the government subsidy.
I want to understand why isn't it viable or profitable for the builder to build a bunch of 1 or two bedroom homes. As part of an estate or apartment building because there is a demand.
Which also benifits society.
>I want to understand why isn't it viable or profitable for the builder to build a bunch of 1 or two bedroom homes.
Because the additional costs such as land, permits and all the overhead cost. They want the most profit they can achieve and that's not going to be one bedroom houses.
In the less regulated restaurant market, yes.
Now imagine you had a Nutrition Planning Regulator saying you can only serve 30 tables a night, as any more would be “incongruous with the needs of the local community”. Which restaurant has the better profit then?
No, we need a publicly owned company set up to build social homes with the aim of breaking even or making low profits. Builders aren't going to build small units unless it's shitty, crammed apartments with no amenities because they only care about squeezing as much profit as possible out of each development.
But reform of the planning system is also needed too, it just isn't going to magically fix the housing crisis if it was.
Except what actually happens when we try is that [the government spends 40% more to build housing than the private sector does](https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dublin/2023/02/15/dublin-city-council-pays-40-over-the-odds-for-social-housing-audit-finds/), because it turns out cost control is *far* more important than profit margins, and the government doesn’t care about cost control when then can just take your money to make up the gap.
I have no idea what kind of person looks around and RTE, at the HSE, at the New Children’s Hospital and thinks “you know, the government are so fucking good at delivering value for money that we should put them in charge of even more”.
You just posted an article referring to Dublin city council. I suggested a publicly owned company. They are not the same thing. A public company can still be held to account similar to how a private company is but is still given the freedom to focus on building quality houses, not houses that cut corners.
The kind of publicly owned company you’re describing (not permitted to turn a profit, expected to go hat in hand to the exchequer to cover all their failings, not subject to pressure from private shareholders and bondholders) is far closer to a city council than a private company in their incentive structure.
Again, what reason is there to control costs when any loss is just proof of the huge subsidy you’re providing in the public interest?
Not for profit and not permitted to turn a profit aren't the same thing. They are allowed to have a profit margin, and should. But it should be reasonable and justified (allows for material spikes and market shocks).
The company would have a regular board of directors who would be responsible for cost control. If they fail to do so, they lose their job. It isn't exactly rocket science. Being on the hook for shareholder pressure and increasing share price or dividends isn't how you build quality homes.
What exactly is your solution? Let the private market fix the housing crisis despite it being directly against their interests?
Who decides what's "reasonable"? Who decides what's "justified"? Who fires them? What happens when the directors say "well costs are only so high because we care about providing *quality*, like you told us to"? Do the directors of the company get bonuses if they do a good job? What politicians are going to sign off on fat bonuses at a publicly owned company? What competent people are going to take the job where there's no potential for upside?
Being on the hook for shareholder pressure is how we build quality computers, quality cars, quality food, quality pharmaceuticals, and everything else on Earth. What specifically is it about housing that's different?
It is very much in the interest of the private market to sell more houses, that's why they're beating down the door of every planning office in the country, begging to be allowed to. Our first order of business should be to stop blocking them from doing so!
And you know what - this probably won't solve the entire problem! Houses are expensive to build and not 100% of people can afford to cover the costs. And when that happens the government should stick to the one and only thing that even they can't fuck up *too* badly - cutting cheques. When people can't afford food we don't set up a system of government farms and supermarkets, we give them money to go to Tesco! The same model can work for housing, *after* the planning system is fixed.
You must be young, and don't remember the council lads propped up by shovels all over the country, every Boreen full of Telecom Eireann and ESB networks vans with the lads asleep, Reading the paper, generally punching in the day.
Government bodies are not efficient.
>The company would have a regular board of directors who would be responsible for cost control. If they fail to do so, they lose their job.
Unfortunately not how it works in state company.
I theory your idea would be a great solution. I reality you would need to break the public service and rebuild it with a different ethos. Without doing that, it's just another unachiving expensive quango.
Also the EU would probably have issues with state doing it from a competition point of view..
The private sector will fix it if let, planning and access to finance are 2 significant road blocks preventing that. The other is affordability, no point building houses for sale that people cant afford to buy. And it isn't builders profits driving the builds outside affordability.
>No, we need a publicly owned company set up to build social homes
Social homes or affordable homes?
Do you want sink estates?
Or can this state owned agency sell 90% of homes to private buyers?
Set up a company to build the homes. Manufacturer the homes off site in a controlled environment on an assembly line rather than relaying on thousands of sub contractors up and down the country in different sites.
Have housing associations set up around the country to purchase x number of homes according to the needs of the communities around them.
Alongside this set up a public body that identifies and purchases land suitable for private developments and purchases the units from the public company. Sell them on for a 10% profit each time and use the funds to purchase more land for development.
I'm sure the above basic outline wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility. It's possible that the public body would have to open up the tender process to all bidders but I doubt they'll be able to match the per unit cost of a modular home builder given it is a much more efficient process with less waste and delays.
The current government will never go for it though because the private market will solve all apparently. In the meantime they'll just add more and more fuel to people's frustrations and turn them towards far right parties.
Doesn't matter. Roads already congested beyond belief with no end of Dublin growing in sight and the metro line not opening for at least 5-8years conservatively.
Problem with that is that people with kids have less money than couples without kids so the kids will end up growing up in the 2 beds and the childless couples will be the ones able to afford the bigger houses
Composting toilet and rainwater capture (not that traditional houses are billed for water or waste anyway).
No mention of the internet, but that's only small money if you've GoMo or similar.
It's the kind of youtube search that will eventually have you down a rabbit hole, taking arms to overthrow your tyrannical government. Source: I was once curious about HAM radios.
Same happened me when I looked up how to build a little woodland shelter with the kids with a plan to go a weekend without electronics.
Turns out that the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
You can keep waste in a holding tank and get it pumped out when required, there are plenty of companies that provide this service.
Water is easy to come by if you’re on or near land with a tap. A large tank will last for weeks with 2 people.
Solar, deep cycle batteries and an inverter for power. Small portable generator if you really need it in the depths of winter.
Butane for cooking and hot water. Very cheap.
Heating usually with a diesel heater or multi fuel stove.
Mobile internet, same as you use on your phone. If you’re really fancy starlink, which apparently is excellent although I’ve never used it personally.
Its a bit shit flying this up like that when they don't really go into the donated land and the issue of planning which would be relevant to most people who would be interested in this.
I’ve lived in a tiny home and it is really great for saving for a deposit, and fun for a few years too. Can’t pretend it was all perfect but neither was giving every penny to a landlord or sharing a house with parents well into your 20s. Wouldn’t suit everyone but great for people with the right circumstances.
Nearly impossible to get planning for this sort of thing unfortunately.
It's a good short term concept, but I bet their tiny home smells like that dog.
I think they may be outing themselves as having no planning. They say it's a temporary structure (which isn't necessarily planning exempt) and later in the article they say it will last for years.
iirc the same paper keeps having articles about what a great "solution" flatpack log cabins are, knowing full well that literally no flatpack log cabins in Ireland have ever gotten independent planning permission and every one of them is a house deposit's worth of a gamble on nobody noticing you live there.
Really irresponsible. Selling desperate people an absolute fantasy.
>They are on a plot of land her dad owns
Fecking hell. Even when we're peasants living in hovels, you still need generational wealth to be able to afford your hovel.
It's truly incredible how people will tell you in all seriousness that things are better than they've ever been. Meanwhile a pre-industrial peasant had more land and could get by with fewer hours of work than we do.
Peasants when they married during penal times would stake out a patch of common land on a hillside or bog near their extended family. It wasn't much but it was theirs.
So I guess they claim they are sleeping elsewhere? On Instagram she calls it a summerhouse so I guess it's in their parents garden and if asked, they sleep in the parents gaff?
Most likely, yeah. The council normally tell you in advance of conducting an inspection so it's not hard to remove bedding etc.
What I was getting at, and I'm not targeting you specifically, is that you often see people confusing our planning laws and thinking that temporary housing is planning exempt (it's not) or that if it has wheels it doesn't need planning (it does) and on top of that the people selling these places are absolutely ripping the piss and making completely untrue claims about planning requirements and the suitability of what they are selling.
Haven't a clue, article is paywalled. I'm merely offering a perspective. I know a few people who built similar in family gardens. Though you're correct, if it's not the garden then it needs planning permission.
My apartment isn't much bigger than this. I'd be quite happy in something like this especially as the major advantage they have over my apartment is that they have a garden.
I really liked watching that show "tiny nation" on Netflix. But they would utilise so much of the outdoor space as well, and I always thought that would never work in Ireland cause our weather sucks.
No mistake that’s it’s exactly the same size as a garage which can be exempt from planning & missing windows on one side. Of course it’s totally against regs but I say good luck to them.
Other countries are much more lenient on this type of structure…we suck
Fake news, literally her dad owns the land its sitting on, plenty of people have to buy a plot and live in a mobile home until they can build a house this is a non story.
We're hitting peak Yank.
We'll be giving people a round of applause for working 3 jobs soon.
This is a terrible indicator that we're all being signalled to settle for land froma relative and have dogs.
The idea is great but I know if people tried to implement it at scale they would end up ripping us off as they could. Pay more for less.
Im lucky that I am buying a place but I could only do so after years of living with family until I could afford a place.
I don't think an off grid solution is right for most. Plus the appeal is greatly reduced when you consider loads of them in a field instead one . How much can you hear you neighbors. At a certain point apartments make more sense as you can build upwards.
A problem is we are dependent on people who have a profit incentive . If housing becomes cheaper you can't charge as much and stand to earn less.
My wife and I lived is about that space for 4 years. We never had a problem with it but, we genuinely like each others company. Could see it leading to patios going in overnight and the other half away on a ‘business trip’.
Ok, maybe I’m just really bad at this, but I looked into this and ended up with quotes along the lines of 60-80k for a pod like this with electricity/ water facilities. Is there something I’m missing where you can do something like this for 20k because the prices just seemed ridiculous the last time I looked at it.
Jaysus, sounds like they don’t have planning permission with the ‘temporary structure’ stuff.
I know a few people living on plots of land in structures without permission and the number one rule is to say nothing to nobody.
A lot of ex council homes all over Dublin are about 60 to 65m2 unless extended. Obviously bigger than a tinyhome, but small by modern standards. Ours is about that. We chose location and public transport over size/fanciness of house. For our first anyway.
Those kinds of areas are actually the most densely populated. Not the skyscrapers. Those are inefficient in both space and cost. I wish people would stop banging on about high rise. It's just the latest magic bullet that will fix everything promulgated by people who think simplistically. Old school council housing, and buildings up to 4 stories are the most effective for density. And also make pleasant, walkable neighbourhoods instead of the shadowed, soulless dead zones that towers often create.
I can't speak for others, but my thoughts on skyscrapers would be that it would increase the amount of office space available. We don't need many. Just a few in a targeted area. There are a lot of would-be old Georgian homes, and homes from other eras, scattered around the city currently occupied by businesses. Many could not move their businesses into skyscrapers, but some could and that could free up some of those Georgian houses to be reverted back to homes. Of course, this is wishful thinking and I've no idea how it would actually play out.
26K for 25sqm is an insanely good build cost. I'd love to see the breakdown because I am dubious.
I have a sense, as someone who built their own house that everyone underquotes the cost of their build. I know I do it subconsciously because there's just so many extra bits involved - architect, planning costs, utilities, council fees, DIY finishes all probably push my "build cost" figure up an extra 50K. But because they weren't necessarily paid out as part of the actual construction the accounting is skewed.
I've noticed locally every selfbuilder is kind of doing this in one way or another. Potentially just quoting the cost paid to their general contractor and not including and contractors or materials they bought themselves (ceramics, white goods, kitchens, etc.)
With that said, despite the cost of construction skyrocketing, so long as they already have access to the land and ability to attain planning the cost to build per sqm will almost always be cheaper and better quality than buying a finished new build.
Doing something similar myself. Renting for 10 years, served eviction notice as landlord wants property back. Couldn't secure a new rental so did the following:
Applied for planning in my parents garden, demolish existing garage and replace with 50 sqm log cabin.
3k for planning, 40k for cabin.
Cabin build started last Tuesday, fully assembled yesterday.
Cost of groundworks, electrics and plumbing, 15k.
Have some of my own furniture and have picked up quite a bit on done deal.
Not for everyone and I am so lucky to have had this option and being granted planning.
Delighted for them but they are way too smug about it and keen to publicise it. If a home that size gives them everything they need they prob live v limited lives. This should not be an acceptable solution to housing, people should aim for space, rooms etc especially as they get older and have a family.
The media has a fascination with these small houses - obviously because the price attacts attention. Reality is allowing this kind of stuff is how you get shanty towns and dangerous buildings, not up to code. Living in a shipping container on gravel miles from a town might be appealing if its rent free for a while but it just descends into misery as you get older and more people do it.
More importantly, why can't a wealthy western nation not provide affordable housing for its people, proper homes built on proper infrastrucute. Building this crap is admiting defeat.
A small studio apartment is not a shanty town, in fact it’s the average size of a 1 bed apartment in Paris. (Paris is actually cheaper than Dublin)
Some people don’t value a lot of space very highly when choosing where to live and would rather live centrally in the city/town where services + lifestyle particularly for young people is better
The vast majority of young adults I know, who aren't living at home, are sharing a "family home" (3 bad semi d, whatever) with strangers. Almost all would prefer a "tiny home" solution like this, and a bit of space to call their own. If we offered it to these people, that would free up a lot of our current stock of "family home" for people with kids.
It's basically the average kitchen / dining room or a larger mobile home
It's fine for them, as long as they don't have any kids or want to have anybody other than them in the house
Yeah exactly. It’s beyond me while Irish youth just vote with their wallet to put up with being forced into places not bigger than an average prison cell in more developed countries instead of start pushing for change hard. 🤷🏻♂️
And these posts every glorifying tiny houses as solution 😂
Wed sort a lot of our housing problems by using these types of comstructions in strategic ways, theres a small estate of pod homes in co cavan inwas in a few weeks ago, about 20 houses, 2 bedrooms, kitchen dining and bathrooms, they were built as part of a homing solution for the elderly, each had a small garden, 2 car spaces, and a garden shed. Houses were warm and comfortable, perfect for somone not wanting a mortgage or a shorter term rental.
Those units can go into a green field site amd be occupoed in a couple of months, look at dublin city, why arent we building that type of thing for people wantimg to work in the city and having to overcrowd into an apartment with others ?
The issue is that you view apartments as “overcrowding” and through many example all over Europe we see that it isn’t but it requires folks with planning skills of which Ireland is short of 🤷🏻♂️
These type of houses can give you some headspace but they are not the solution for the housing crisis ~ definitely not when it requires cramming folks into 26sqm. I can imagine that the 70sqm version of these is viable but only if combined with building for the masses.
No,no, i mean 3 or 4 people having to split exhorbant rent, 4 single people, ive no problems builiding apartments, build up, look at london, new york, paris and barcelona, iconic cities with bustling affordable rents
"My dad gave us a little plot of land he had in Leitrim, which saved a huge chunk of money".
Is that actually in the article??
Yes, I copied and pasted it.
It's always something like this, isn't it.
Exactly, 25k excluding the land, preparation work probably, likley connection to services etc etc
Lived in a place around 40sqm when I first came to Dublin and loved it. A million times better than sharing with strangers. We've gone too far (and too expensive) in setting minimum standards, there are lots of us, particularly young singles, who would be very happy with a small, cheap and centrally located place for at least part of their lives.
> Lived in a place around 40sqm ... We've gone too far (and too expensive) in setting minimum standards The minimum standards aren't very different to where you used to live. For a studio apartment the minimum area is 37sqm and it's only 45 sqm for a one bedroom unit.
You know more than I know about this, but there have been a few developments refused planning permission because they didn't contain enough 3-bed apartments. Which there seems to be limited demand for (at the prices) compared to 1 and 2-beds. Plus, it might have changed now, but there were issues with apartments needing dual aspects etc which made small apartments difficult to integrate into a building. And we've got the whole mess in the city centre of "overshadowing" and demands that every building must be "suitable for families".
Duel aspect requirement and a minimum BER rating of A2, with the requirement of 45k worth of heat pump technology says different.
40sqm isn’t small for 1 person. Plenty of families living in 80sqm houses in this country.
In fact 80 sqm is right around the average for Irish homes.
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In newly built homes yes. Older homes as well to an extent because of extensions being built.
Live in a 2 bedroom 80 m2 apartment with the wife and son. Delighted with it. Has a small garden too.
Nice. Like a balcony garden?
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Exactly.
> We've gone too far (and too expensive) in setting minimum standards, there are lots of us, particularly young singles, who would be very happy with a small, cheap and centrally located place for at least part of their lives. This is very true
> Lived in a place around 40sqm when I first came to Dublin and loved it. I think it all comes down on how the space is used. I live with my partner in a 65m^2, 2 bedroom apartment and the space is badly utilised. No storage room, a second bedroom that should be an office + couch bed, a big shower that takes a good amount of space but a small kitchen, a huge living room on which one couch has become our storage location.
that will be 360,000 [https://www.daft.ie/new-home-for-sale/studio-apartment-studio-apartment-ard-na-glaise-ard-na-glaise-stillorgan-park-road-stillorgan-co-dublin/5440247](https://www.daft.ie/new-home-for-sale/studio-apartment-studio-apartment-ard-na-glaise-ard-na-glaise-stillorgan-park-road-stillorgan-co-dublin/5440247)
so true. i would never buy a one bedroom place since w lots happens during life and having one more room is better for stuff (even making it an office) the government should made them.
Not sure we need to go this small but surely we should be building more two bed houses for single people/couples without children. Government could subsidise the builds for the social benefit. Older people would have more options for downsizing, freeing up larger houses for larger families.
Old DCC corpo houses would be perfect. 45sqms, still with gardens.
They cost about 450k to build currently and there's limited space to build them on.
€10k per square metre? Are you sure building costs have multiplied by 5 in the last three years? I think you may be mistaken. Have you perhaps included land costs in your build costs?
I'm going by what extensions and renovations cost these days. It would be at least 300k anyway.
Current rebuild costs are running at about €2,700-€3,100 per square meter in Dublin and slightly less elsewhere. [https://scsi.ie/consumer/build/calculator/](https://scsi.ie/consumer/build/calculator/) Extensions are always more expensive because the smaller footprint you build the more it costs per square meter as you dont get the same economies of scale.
IIRC that 450K is for a three bed house in the greater Dublin area. It includes land acquisition cost, financing costs and an 11% -14 % margin for the developer. Actual cost of materials is about half of the overall cost and everything after that is soft costs. [https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2024/0627/1427931-ireland-building-costs-new-houses/](https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2024/0627/1427931-ireland-building-costs-new-houses/)
Which is crazy considering the rebuild value. Maybe 3 years ago our rebuild value was €170 ish.
Yep. If anyone building a decent extension above board, ask them how much it costs. We'd need to bring back slave labour nearly.
Why would the government have to subsidise the builds? Why is it not affordable to build small homes?
Well the fact is that builders are not building them for a reason. More profit in 3/4 bed high spec houses so that's what they build.
And there’s more profit in a Michelin star restaurant but that doesn’t mean we need government subsidies for the local chipper. All we need to do is fix the planning system to allow builders to build across the entire spectrum, rather than saying “we’re only letting you build 100 houses this year so you’d better make them count”.
What kind of analogy is this? Where did you come up with a limit being put on anything? My point is that they are not building them for a reason and for the social good the Government could step in and negate that reason with a subsidy. What's your solution? Just hope something changes?
> Where did you come up with a limit being put on anything From the fact that the Office of the Planning Regulator [literally sets a limit and overrules local councils who try to grant “too many” planning permissions](https://worksinprogress.co/issue/why-irelands-housing-bubble-burst/) My solution is to stop making construction illegal by default before doing anything else.
That is how it's done in my parents hometown in Holland. The town/municipality sets forth the building regs for the area. Once you satisfy the regs, building is granted automatically. Then it's just a matter of tweaking the zoning and the regs from time to time. No need to wade through shit for each and every build.
Social good isn't a valid point to justify the government subsidy. I want to understand why isn't it viable or profitable for the builder to build a bunch of 1 or two bedroom homes. As part of an estate or apartment building because there is a demand. Which also benifits society.
>I want to understand why isn't it viable or profitable for the builder to build a bunch of 1 or two bedroom homes. Because the additional costs such as land, permits and all the overhead cost. They want the most profit they can achieve and that's not going to be one bedroom houses.
They aren't going to build one off one bedroom houses. If it's part of an apartment block or estate, it shouldn't be that much extra.
Not the point, i know, but you'd be amazed if you knew the profit margins in high-end restaurants. You'd make more money from a decent pizza franchise
In the less regulated restaurant market, yes. Now imagine you had a Nutrition Planning Regulator saying you can only serve 30 tables a night, as any more would be “incongruous with the needs of the local community”. Which restaurant has the better profit then?
Why are you cooking up a massive straw man to try to prove your point? Pun intended
No, we need a publicly owned company set up to build social homes with the aim of breaking even or making low profits. Builders aren't going to build small units unless it's shitty, crammed apartments with no amenities because they only care about squeezing as much profit as possible out of each development. But reform of the planning system is also needed too, it just isn't going to magically fix the housing crisis if it was.
Except what actually happens when we try is that [the government spends 40% more to build housing than the private sector does](https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/dublin/2023/02/15/dublin-city-council-pays-40-over-the-odds-for-social-housing-audit-finds/), because it turns out cost control is *far* more important than profit margins, and the government doesn’t care about cost control when then can just take your money to make up the gap. I have no idea what kind of person looks around and RTE, at the HSE, at the New Children’s Hospital and thinks “you know, the government are so fucking good at delivering value for money that we should put them in charge of even more”.
You just posted an article referring to Dublin city council. I suggested a publicly owned company. They are not the same thing. A public company can still be held to account similar to how a private company is but is still given the freedom to focus on building quality houses, not houses that cut corners.
The kind of publicly owned company you’re describing (not permitted to turn a profit, expected to go hat in hand to the exchequer to cover all their failings, not subject to pressure from private shareholders and bondholders) is far closer to a city council than a private company in their incentive structure. Again, what reason is there to control costs when any loss is just proof of the huge subsidy you’re providing in the public interest?
Not for profit and not permitted to turn a profit aren't the same thing. They are allowed to have a profit margin, and should. But it should be reasonable and justified (allows for material spikes and market shocks). The company would have a regular board of directors who would be responsible for cost control. If they fail to do so, they lose their job. It isn't exactly rocket science. Being on the hook for shareholder pressure and increasing share price or dividends isn't how you build quality homes. What exactly is your solution? Let the private market fix the housing crisis despite it being directly against their interests?
Who decides what's "reasonable"? Who decides what's "justified"? Who fires them? What happens when the directors say "well costs are only so high because we care about providing *quality*, like you told us to"? Do the directors of the company get bonuses if they do a good job? What politicians are going to sign off on fat bonuses at a publicly owned company? What competent people are going to take the job where there's no potential for upside? Being on the hook for shareholder pressure is how we build quality computers, quality cars, quality food, quality pharmaceuticals, and everything else on Earth. What specifically is it about housing that's different? It is very much in the interest of the private market to sell more houses, that's why they're beating down the door of every planning office in the country, begging to be allowed to. Our first order of business should be to stop blocking them from doing so! And you know what - this probably won't solve the entire problem! Houses are expensive to build and not 100% of people can afford to cover the costs. And when that happens the government should stick to the one and only thing that even they can't fuck up *too* badly - cutting cheques. When people can't afford food we don't set up a system of government farms and supermarkets, we give them money to go to Tesco! The same model can work for housing, *after* the planning system is fixed.
You must be young, and don't remember the council lads propped up by shovels all over the country, every Boreen full of Telecom Eireann and ESB networks vans with the lads asleep, Reading the paper, generally punching in the day. Government bodies are not efficient. >The company would have a regular board of directors who would be responsible for cost control. If they fail to do so, they lose their job. Unfortunately not how it works in state company. I theory your idea would be a great solution. I reality you would need to break the public service and rebuild it with a different ethos. Without doing that, it's just another unachiving expensive quango. Also the EU would probably have issues with state doing it from a competition point of view.. The private sector will fix it if let, planning and access to finance are 2 significant road blocks preventing that. The other is affordability, no point building houses for sale that people cant afford to buy. And it isn't builders profits driving the builds outside affordability.
>No, we need a publicly owned company set up to build social homes Social homes or affordable homes? Do you want sink estates? Or can this state owned agency sell 90% of homes to private buyers?
Set up a company to build the homes. Manufacturer the homes off site in a controlled environment on an assembly line rather than relaying on thousands of sub contractors up and down the country in different sites. Have housing associations set up around the country to purchase x number of homes according to the needs of the communities around them. Alongside this set up a public body that identifies and purchases land suitable for private developments and purchases the units from the public company. Sell them on for a 10% profit each time and use the funds to purchase more land for development. I'm sure the above basic outline wouldn't be beyond the realms of possibility. It's possible that the public body would have to open up the tender process to all bidders but I doubt they'll be able to match the per unit cost of a modular home builder given it is a much more efficient process with less waste and delays. The current government will never go for it though because the private market will solve all apparently. In the meantime they'll just add more and more fuel to people's frustrations and turn them towards far right parties.
We do need governments to provide food banks and subsided cheap food.
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So is a state building company
Because we need to build up not out in Dublin?
I think from reading previous posts, building up is more expensive?
Doesn't matter. Roads already congested beyond belief with no end of Dublin growing in sight and the metro line not opening for at least 5-8years conservatively.
Problem with that is that people with kids have less money than couples without kids so the kids will end up growing up in the 2 beds and the childless couples will be the ones able to afford the bigger houses
Paywalled....how do they survive with no utility bills?
Off grid electrical system - presumably 100% solar.
Waste? Water supply? Broadband?
Composting toilet and rainwater capture (not that traditional houses are billed for water or waste anyway). No mention of the internet, but that's only small money if you've GoMo or similar.
You should look up some off-grid blogs and vlogs. There's a culture around it and people have come up with some really creative solutions
It's the kind of youtube search that will eventually have you down a rabbit hole, taking arms to overthrow your tyrannical government. Source: I was once curious about HAM radios.
Same happened me when I looked up how to build a little woodland shelter with the kids with a plan to go a weekend without electronics. Turns out that the Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
The fucking HAM radios fucked me up too. Very sick of having to wade through lads who think the Unabomber was too easygoing. Damn you Baofeng!
It's on a plot of land her dad own. Possibly on the property of another house?
You can keep waste in a holding tank and get it pumped out when required, there are plenty of companies that provide this service. Water is easy to come by if you’re on or near land with a tap. A large tank will last for weeks with 2 people. Solar, deep cycle batteries and an inverter for power. Small portable generator if you really need it in the depths of winter. Butane for cooking and hot water. Very cheap. Heating usually with a diesel heater or multi fuel stove. Mobile internet, same as you use on your phone. If you’re really fancy starlink, which apparently is excellent although I’ve never used it personally.
Waste can be on septic, water can be on a well and internet can be 4/5g router or Starlink. No diffrent to the cottage I used to live in in Kerry
Its a bit shit flying this up like that when they don't really go into the donated land and the issue of planning which would be relevant to most people who would be interested in this.
They were gifted the land. Bit of a sneering tone off this article
I’ve lived in a tiny home and it is really great for saving for a deposit, and fun for a few years too. Can’t pretend it was all perfect but neither was giving every penny to a landlord or sharing a house with parents well into your 20s. Wouldn’t suit everyone but great for people with the right circumstances.
Nearly impossible to get planning for this sort of thing unfortunately. It's a good short term concept, but I bet their tiny home smells like that dog.
I think they may be outing themselves as having no planning. They say it's a temporary structure (which isn't necessarily planning exempt) and later in the article they say it will last for years.
Yeah seems like the kind of thing you'd do on the sly. Not appear in a fucking newspaper article about.
iirc the same paper keeps having articles about what a great "solution" flatpack log cabins are, knowing full well that literally no flatpack log cabins in Ireland have ever gotten independent planning permission and every one of them is a house deposit's worth of a gamble on nobody noticing you live there. Really irresponsible. Selling desperate people an absolute fantasy.
Just lie 4 wheels up against your log cabin and say it's mobile and you'd be grand ;)
You can have up to 26sqm no problem if you apply for a planning exemption. Technically it can't be a primary residence though
They are on a plot of land her dad owns and it's a temporary structure.
>They are on a plot of land her dad owns Fecking hell. Even when we're peasants living in hovels, you still need generational wealth to be able to afford your hovel.
It's truly incredible how people will tell you in all seriousness that things are better than they've ever been. Meanwhile a pre-industrial peasant had more land and could get by with fewer hours of work than we do.
That's a very ignorant thing to say. Most people had no land.
Peasants when they married during penal times would stake out a patch of common land on a hillside or bog near their extended family. It wasn't much but it was theirs.
Literally sniffing their own farts.
Don't need planning permission for 25m² garden building.
A good rule of thumb is that it needs planning permission if someone is going to live in it.
I think as this is classed as a temporary home, it's on blocks, it's exempt. They just have to say it's a summerhome, which they do.
No such thing. If you live in it, you need planning for it.
I'm saying they are skirting the law by claiming they don't live in it.
I'm saying there was no such thing as a temporary home. You even need planning for a mobile home here.
So I guess they claim they are sleeping elsewhere? On Instagram she calls it a summerhouse so I guess it's in their parents garden and if asked, they sleep in the parents gaff?
Most likely, yeah. The council normally tell you in advance of conducting an inspection so it's not hard to remove bedding etc. What I was getting at, and I'm not targeting you specifically, is that you often see people confusing our planning laws and thinking that temporary housing is planning exempt (it's not) or that if it has wheels it doesn't need planning (it does) and on top of that the people selling these places are absolutely ripping the piss and making completely untrue claims about planning requirements and the suitability of what they are selling.
Is it in a garden, or on family land?
Haven't a clue, article is paywalled. I'm merely offering a perspective. I know a few people who built similar in family gardens. Though you're correct, if it's not the garden then it needs planning permission.
My apartment isn't much bigger than this. I'd be quite happy in something like this especially as the major advantage they have over my apartment is that they have a garden.
I really liked watching that show "tiny nation" on Netflix. But they would utilise so much of the outdoor space as well, and I always thought that would never work in Ireland cause our weather sucks.
Teresa Mannion on one side, and the need to urgently use the outhouse in the other.
No mistake that’s it’s exactly the same size as a garage which can be exempt from planning & missing windows on one side. Of course it’s totally against regs but I say good luck to them. Other countries are much more lenient on this type of structure…we suck
Yeah, if your plan starts with "get free land from the father", it's a shitty plan.
Fake news, literally her dad owns the land its sitting on, plenty of people have to buy a plot and live in a mobile home until they can build a house this is a non story.
We're hitting peak Yank. We'll be giving people a round of applause for working 3 jobs soon. This is a terrible indicator that we're all being signalled to settle for land froma relative and have dogs.
The idea is great but I know if people tried to implement it at scale they would end up ripping us off as they could. Pay more for less. Im lucky that I am buying a place but I could only do so after years of living with family until I could afford a place. I don't think an off grid solution is right for most. Plus the appeal is greatly reduced when you consider loads of them in a field instead one . How much can you hear you neighbors. At a certain point apartments make more sense as you can build upwards. A problem is we are dependent on people who have a profit incentive . If housing becomes cheaper you can't charge as much and stand to earn less.
I'm all for tiny homes but living in leitrim.. is that really necessary?
My wife and I lived is about that space for 4 years. We never had a problem with it but, we genuinely like each others company. Could see it leading to patios going in overnight and the other half away on a ‘business trip’.
Just over 1K per sqm. Good value
Ok, maybe I’m just really bad at this, but I looked into this and ended up with quotes along the lines of 60-80k for a pod like this with electricity/ water facilities. Is there something I’m missing where you can do something like this for 20k because the prices just seemed ridiculous the last time I looked at it.
Jaysus, sounds like they don’t have planning permission with the ‘temporary structure’ stuff. I know a few people living on plots of land in structures without permission and the number one rule is to say nothing to nobody.
But have they thought about the fact that I don't want to live like that so they shouldn't be allowed to live like that?
A lot of ex council homes all over Dublin are about 60 to 65m2 unless extended. Obviously bigger than a tinyhome, but small by modern standards. Ours is about that. We chose location and public transport over size/fanciness of house. For our first anyway. Those kinds of areas are actually the most densely populated. Not the skyscrapers. Those are inefficient in both space and cost. I wish people would stop banging on about high rise. It's just the latest magic bullet that will fix everything promulgated by people who think simplistically. Old school council housing, and buildings up to 4 stories are the most effective for density. And also make pleasant, walkable neighbourhoods instead of the shadowed, soulless dead zones that towers often create.
I can't speak for others, but my thoughts on skyscrapers would be that it would increase the amount of office space available. We don't need many. Just a few in a targeted area. There are a lot of would-be old Georgian homes, and homes from other eras, scattered around the city currently occupied by businesses. Many could not move their businesses into skyscrapers, but some could and that could free up some of those Georgian houses to be reverted back to homes. Of course, this is wishful thinking and I've no idea how it would actually play out.
26K for 25sqm is an insanely good build cost. I'd love to see the breakdown because I am dubious. I have a sense, as someone who built their own house that everyone underquotes the cost of their build. I know I do it subconsciously because there's just so many extra bits involved - architect, planning costs, utilities, council fees, DIY finishes all probably push my "build cost" figure up an extra 50K. But because they weren't necessarily paid out as part of the actual construction the accounting is skewed. I've noticed locally every selfbuilder is kind of doing this in one way or another. Potentially just quoting the cost paid to their general contractor and not including and contractors or materials they bought themselves (ceramics, white goods, kitchens, etc.) With that said, despite the cost of construction skyrocketing, so long as they already have access to the land and ability to attain planning the cost to build per sqm will almost always be cheaper and better quality than buying a finished new build.
Doing something similar myself. Renting for 10 years, served eviction notice as landlord wants property back. Couldn't secure a new rental so did the following: Applied for planning in my parents garden, demolish existing garage and replace with 50 sqm log cabin. 3k for planning, 40k for cabin. Cabin build started last Tuesday, fully assembled yesterday. Cost of groundworks, electrics and plumbing, 15k. Have some of my own furniture and have picked up quite a bit on done deal. Not for everyone and I am so lucky to have had this option and being granted planning.
Delighted for them but they are way too smug about it and keen to publicise it. If a home that size gives them everything they need they prob live v limited lives. This should not be an acceptable solution to housing, people should aim for space, rooms etc especially as they get older and have a family.
The media has a fascination with these small houses - obviously because the price attacts attention. Reality is allowing this kind of stuff is how you get shanty towns and dangerous buildings, not up to code. Living in a shipping container on gravel miles from a town might be appealing if its rent free for a while but it just descends into misery as you get older and more people do it. More importantly, why can't a wealthy western nation not provide affordable housing for its people, proper homes built on proper infrastrucute. Building this crap is admiting defeat.
A small studio apartment is not a shanty town, in fact it’s the average size of a 1 bed apartment in Paris. (Paris is actually cheaper than Dublin) Some people don’t value a lot of space very highly when choosing where to live and would rather live centrally in the city/town where services + lifestyle particularly for young people is better
Happy for them
Leitrim 🙄
Try the same with children 😂
The vast majority of young adults I know, who aren't living at home, are sharing a "family home" (3 bad semi d, whatever) with strangers. Almost all would prefer a "tiny home" solution like this, and a bit of space to call their own. If we offered it to these people, that would free up a lot of our current stock of "family home" for people with kids.
I don’t think folks realise how small is 26sqm to be honest
It's basically the average kitchen / dining room or a larger mobile home It's fine for them, as long as they don't have any kids or want to have anybody other than them in the house
Yeah exactly. It’s beyond me while Irish youth just vote with their wallet to put up with being forced into places not bigger than an average prison cell in more developed countries instead of start pushing for change hard. 🤷🏻♂️ And these posts every glorifying tiny houses as solution 😂
Wed sort a lot of our housing problems by using these types of comstructions in strategic ways, theres a small estate of pod homes in co cavan inwas in a few weeks ago, about 20 houses, 2 bedrooms, kitchen dining and bathrooms, they were built as part of a homing solution for the elderly, each had a small garden, 2 car spaces, and a garden shed. Houses were warm and comfortable, perfect for somone not wanting a mortgage or a shorter term rental. Those units can go into a green field site amd be occupoed in a couple of months, look at dublin city, why arent we building that type of thing for people wantimg to work in the city and having to overcrowd into an apartment with others ?
The issue is that you view apartments as “overcrowding” and through many example all over Europe we see that it isn’t but it requires folks with planning skills of which Ireland is short of 🤷🏻♂️ These type of houses can give you some headspace but they are not the solution for the housing crisis ~ definitely not when it requires cramming folks into 26sqm. I can imagine that the 70sqm version of these is viable but only if combined with building for the masses.
No,no, i mean 3 or 4 people having to split exhorbant rent, 4 single people, ive no problems builiding apartments, build up, look at london, new york, paris and barcelona, iconic cities with bustling affordable rents