# Minister O’Brien Calls for Expressions of Interest for Membership of Commission on Housing



## Brendan Burgess (23 Nov 2021)

Tuesday 23 November 2021

*Minister O’Brien Calls for Expressions of Interest for Membership of Commission on Housing *

​
- *Government approves establishment of Commission on Housing*

- *Commission to examine issues such as maintaining sustainable housing supply; tenure choice; housing costs and quality *



The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien, TD, has called for expressions of interest from members of the public to apply to be a member of the Commission on Housing, which is due to be established before the end of the year. At its meeting this morning, the Government approved the establishment of a Commission on Housing. The Commission will examine long-term housing policy, beyond 2030, and report to Government on how to build on policy changes committed to under Housing for All, the Government’s national plan on housing to 2030.

...

The call for expressions of interest (and the commission’s terms of reference) can be found here:  https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/a8791-commission-on-housing-expressions-of-interest-and-terms-of-reference/

*Ends*


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## Brendan Burgess (10 Dec 2021)

RetirementPlan said:


> Orla has been excellent on the ventilation issues, but I'm not convinced about the strategic role for architects in solving our housing issues.



Do you know anything about her before the pandemic? 

I have attended her presentation on housing and it has been excellent. 



			https://people.ucd.ie/orla.hegarty/publications


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## RetirementPlan (10 Dec 2021)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Do you know anything about her before the pandemic?
> 
> I have attended her presentation on housing and it has been excellent.
> 
> ...


No, I know very little about her. My comments were more about her profession than about her, personally. In terms of the skills needed at the table for this Commission, I'm not sure Architect is in the must-have pile.


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## Brendan Burgess (10 Dec 2021)

So you would not put into the must-have pile the people who design large scale town plans, housing estates, apartment blocks and other living spaces and who have years of experience of dealing with the planning system. 

I presume you have not followed the links and read any of her publications?


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## NoRegretsCoyote (10 Dec 2021)

RetirementPlan said:


> I'm not convinced about the strategic role for architects in solving our housing issues. Their role is to design buildings or external spaces.


Exactly. 

It's like asking electricians how to run a power grid.


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## Brendan Burgess (10 Dec 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> It's like asking electricians how to run a power grid.



No, it's like asking electrical engineers to participate in a group to discuss the building of a power grid.  

Brendan


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## NoRegretsCoyote (10 Dec 2021)

Architects are totally downstream of all major strategic decisions on housing. They generally (though not always) have a creative mindset rather than an analytical one.


It's like asking novelists to run a publishing house.


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## Brendan Burgess (10 Dec 2021)

Architects draw up plans for housing developments.
They draw up town plans. 
They design houses and living accommodation for different uses. 
They look at sites, small and large, and work out their optimum use. 

Just go and look at Orla Hegarty's publications to get some idea of what an architect can be involved in.

Brendan


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## NoRegretsCoyote (10 Dec 2021)

Brendan Burgess said:


> They look at sites, small and large, and work out their optimum use.


All of which are mostly irrelevant to the strategic questions around housing.

These are big questions and are to do with tax, tenure law the zoning system, transport planning, utilities, etc.

It's not about how many units you can squeeze on to a site and how to have a nice built environment at local level.

I'd sooner see an expert on water and wastewater provision as this is often a major issue that makes development unviable.


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## Brendan Burgess (11 Dec 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> All of which are mostly irrelevant to the strategic questions around housing.



It's not at all.

For example, at Orla Hegarty's presentation on housing to the Dublin Economics Workshop she said that the optimum density was blocks of 4 storeys.  That really surprised me.  I had assumed that building as tall as possible was the right idea. 

Most people's interaction with architects is when they draw pretty pictures for their extension or their one-off house.  And maybe that sort of small-time architect would not have that much to contribute.   But architects generally are at the centre of large scale town planning and property development. 

Again, I would suggest that you read some of Orla Hegarty's contributions. I doubt that she has ever designed a house extension.

Brendan


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## Purple (11 Dec 2021)

NoRegretsCoyote said:


> All of which are mostly irrelevant to the strategic questions around housing.
> 
> These are big questions and are to do with tax, tenure law the zoning system, transport planning, utilities, etc.
> 
> ...


While the planning process is the number one issue cited by developers for delays in delivering houses there's an element of "they would say that, wouldn't they" about it. Undoubtedly the planning process is a major factor the availability of serviced land is also a major issue. Both of those can be sorted out by using the levels of the State; We can provide services to sites we zone free of charge and we can change our property tax to a site value tax and levy it an all services zoned sites, built on or not. If the owner doesn't pay up we can take the site into State ownership and sell it or build on it but keep levying the taxes.
The issue of labour supply and planning the built environment is where I see Architects being key. If we want to deliver higher quality homes and deliver them quickly and cheaply then they have to be built in a factory. Factory built homes require far less skilled labour, can be delivered much faster and are of a much higher quality. That should all be self evident.


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## RetirementPlan (13 Dec 2021)

Brendan Burgess said:


> It's not at all.
> 
> For example, at Orla Hegarty's presentation on housing to the Dublin Economics Workshop she said that the optimum density was blocks of 4 storeys.  That really surprised me.  I had assumed that building as tall as possible was the right idea.
> 
> ...


Isn't the 'block height' question really a costing/quantity surveying issue? I recall some updates from Society of Chartered of Chartered Surveyors identifying that the costs of building above six storeys exceeding the savings from sharing the original site purchase price across with a higher number of units. 

I'm not sure that is really an architect issue?

And I'm not sure that 'town planning' is an architectural skill either. Isn't this down to planners, which is a separate profession?


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## Brendan Burgess (13 Dec 2021)

I am getting the impression that you think that architects draw pretty pictures all day? 

It's a much wider profession than that.  

Here is what the UCD School of Architecture teaches: 

*The UCD School of Architecture, Planning & Environmental Policy* brings together the disciplines of architecture, environmental policy, landscape architecture and regional and urban planning to provide a unique interdisciplinary teaching and research environment.


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## Towger (13 Dec 2021)

Town planners design towns, they may have started life with a degree in architecture.  It you let architects on the loose in the planning department you end up with the likes of the Magic Roundabout in the England.


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## RetirementPlan (13 Dec 2021)

Brendan Burgess said:


> I am getting the impression that you think that architects draw pretty pictures all day?
> 
> It's a much wider profession than that.
> 
> ...


That's the scope for the School though, which does more than train architects. It trains planners and environmental folks tool


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## Purple (13 Dec 2021)

People should be judged on their expertise, not their qualification.
The heat of the School of Mechanical Engineering in UCD once gave me a great piece of advice; "Never confuse education with qualification. Qualification is what happens for a few years in College, education is what happens throughout your life." While Orla Hegarty's qualification may be in Architecture, I would consider her expertise to be much more broadly based.


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## RetirementPlan (13 Dec 2021)

Purple said:


> People should be judged on their expertise, not their qualification.
> The heat of the School of Mechanical Engineering in UCD once gave me a great piece of advice; "Never confuse education with qualification. Qualification is what happens for a few years in College, education is what happens throughout your life." While Orla Hegarty's qualification may be in Architecture, I would consider her expertise to be much more broadly based.


I broadly agree. My comments have nothing to do with Orla Hegarty. I don't know enough about her to comment. She might be the ideal candidate for this. 

My comment was about the relevance of architecture to strategic housing policy.


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## Purple (13 Dec 2021)

RetirementPlan said:


> I broadly agree. My comments have nothing to do with Orla Hegarty. I don't know enough about her to comment. She might be the ideal candidate for this.
> 
> My comment was about the relevance of architecture to strategic housing policy.


Fair enough.


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