Garden rooms to be exempt

Setforlife said:

It’s not ‘nimbyism’ to think that you shouldn’t wholesale change what are mostly fire related regulations because of lack of proper planning and regulation systems for years.

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I think it always helps to try and see the other side of it - the point of view of the person struggling to find anywhere to live.

"A shed in a back garden seems terrible, but my other options are so bad this is the best I can do"

"Sorry, you can't live there, there's a higher risk in case of a fire than other places"

"But I don't have other options"

"Yeah, but those options you don't have are much safer in terms of fire"

"So I have no place to live"

"Yes, but if you did it would be safer."

I'm not sure this proposal (if it ever was a serious proposal) is going to be generally well received:

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, but blanket licensing to allow subdivision of housing plots and a proliferation of back yard cabins is beyond desperate – it is idiotic....
...
But only the most naive, or wilfully ignorant, will believe that the biggest beneficiaries of a blanket relaxation in planning standards won’t be the most unscrupulous landlords, while their tenants and neighbours will be the biggest victims.

Large-scale, deregulated subdivision of existing housing plots will turn the housing crisis – which we hope is a temporary crisis – into a permanent reduction in living standards.

In simple terms, it will reduce the quality of existing stock as well as the proposed new “supply”........"

Well, judging by today’s Joe Duffy show (yeah, I know…), the general reaction to the proposal was extremely positive.

Hope for this chappy then


I have a sheomera myself, the hassle I had with neighbours was unreal

These will not be used by family, nor will there be any regulation or enforcement. Enforcement of planning is already substandard to nil.

As a matter of curiosity, what do we think a 40sqm cabin (living, bedroom and bathroom) would cost? Ballpark.

€60k? More? Less?

There was one at Bloom was about €30k for 25 square metres. So if they're not being stupid about the required standards you'd be looking at €50k for 40 square metres.

Built fully compliant with building standards, then probably around €140k.

But as with everything, there's a minimum cost but no maximum cost: you can always spend more to get the same thing. Bike sheds for example.

I got quotes from some of the well known garden room providers recently and €50-60k was almost exactly the quote I had for 40-50sqm when you include plumbing/electrics etc. to a decent finish (which would be required if they’re saying A-rated only). Ended up hiring the individual trades directly so we could customise it and to reduce the lead time, it will come out about €50k to a similar finish to a good timber frame house.

I could be a good idea but wouldn't make it any easier for myself personally as I don't think I would fancy having to live that close to the in-laws.

This idea that it will be fine and there will of course be fire regs followed etc is just absolute naive stuff. They are taking about making them exempt, so literally no one will check anything at all up until someone tries to sell a house with one and the solicitors look for building certs.

Without a planning application there is no drainage check, no plans check, no check on fire regulations, access, escape routes. absolutely no process at all. The vast majority of these sheds are death traps, one direction out, no hallways and up against a solid rear garden wall. There is no way for any of them to meet fire regulations to live in.

Even the minister with the idea says checks ‘are a matter for the relevant council’ so he plans to exempt them from planning so council can do nothing when they are built and then when people start dying it them from fires claim that the council didn’t do their job properly. Just so the FGFF government can say they made more homes available.

It seems there are no limits to the upsides to this great idea:

"However, architect Mel Reynolds has pointed to some unintended consequences of such planning relaxations.

“If the idea of this scheme is to rent these rooms out, then you add an income stream to the property and the value of these houses will probably go up by about €150,000 or €200,000.

“If you own a house, that’s great, but it’s not so great for somebody who’s trying to buy a house in the second-hand market,” said Mr Reynolds.......

.....Orla Hegarty...... also mentioned the risk of repeating the “Beds in Sheds” phenomenon in the UK, where substandard accommodation was being rented out in landlords’ back gardens, often to low-paid, vulnerable workers. Here we saw people living in really poorly built sheds, sometimes with no shower or toilet facilities, issues with overcrowding, unsanitary conditions that created health risks and was totally deregulated.

I think it's a good idea, but needs to be as flexible, as possible. “Intergenerational movement” between the main house and the garden home seems to suggest that it is for the children or the older family members, and that is going to have limited impact on housing demand. In terms of family situations, single storey units like these might suit elderly relatives or owners wishing to downsize and wishing to remain in their area (by giving the main residence to a family member). They might also suit couples, trying to save as an alternative to living in the actual house with parents/in laws. But limiting to these cohorts is going to have minimal impact.

So the less restrictions, the better for any realistic impact. And the accommodation situation needs responses on many fronts. I think that incentives on the lines of the rent a room a room are needed to drive these types of measures. That, of course, would rule out rental income from immediate family being tax free. I read this morning somebody suggesting that the addition of these dwellings will increase house prices by quite a bit. That would be more LPT; fine.

I wouldn't think that these dwellings would seriously impact public water or sewerage services but could be inconvenient for parking in some urban areas, but probably little different to a few car owner tenants in a house.

Some media reports yesterday were saying that internationally there was good interest/take up in these ‘backyard’ homes in California and Vancouver.

Tuscany said:

I read this morning somebody suggesting that the addition of these dwellings will increase house prices by quite a bit. That would be more LPT; fine.

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The miniscule increase in LPT would in no way mitigate, or compensate for, the rise in house prices. There is a much simpler and fairer way to to increase LPT income - raise the rates.

Zenith63 said:

If the plan is to allow something like the mews you see at the end of 200 foot gardens in certain parts of the city then game on. However if we're talking about prefabs 10 feet from the back of a house in already small gardens then this is one more indignity being heaped on the upcoming generations by the failures of government to get proper homes on the market.

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It's not the job of government to get "proper" homes on the market.

misemoi said:

It will prove impossible to have restrictions on who can live in them

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Given that the city councils have found it close to impossible to properly enforce requirements to have PP for AirBnbs in RPZs, the odds of being likely to enforce who lives there and on what terms are something close to zero.

dubdub123 said:

But on a wider scale, how will systems cope? Water pressure, sewage, national grid?

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This would be my thoughts also. Its fine if just a very small number do it, but if you have an additional 40m2 unit jerry-connected to the sewerage system in every second garden, its going to be a major issue.
The brother has a neighbour who installed one of these units in their garden, they got a carpenter to board up the windows on his side to "comply" with planning laws and "connected" it to the main house via a wodden tunnel. Council let them away with it, despite formal complaints for planning breach. Within a year they'd split the house in 2 also and were renting the whole lot as separate units. Its all fine, until loads of people start doing it. Now the water splash off from the gutters comes into his garden and the sewer line stinks as god knows what they did to force in water.
At least with planning you know whats going to be built, with these "garden rooms" it could be literally anything as long as its under 40m2.

I wonder about how many of these actually be built on foot of this. Those people with large gardens who would like one for their adult kids or an au pair probably already have one that is occupied as such already. Those who might want to make a quick buck will potentially be put off by the soon to be very inflated cost of installing one and potential bottleneck of supply - even if you can get a ready made one installed, it still needs a raft, plumbing, electrician sign off etc. Those trades people are pretty hard to get these days. You can apparently move and sell some of them but again, how does this work in practice, you need a crane to lift, some way of transporting, a crane to put in it's new place and the same issue with raft, connections etc.

What will probably happen is those who already have one who might have been put off by not wanting to have hassle with neighbours reporting them for using them without planning might reconsider their value if they can legally use them as a rental.

Also what will the knock on impact be on converted garages, granny flats etc? If i had one of these that is not exempt from planning for rental, I can't really see the difference and I would be demanding a review of this too.

Full disclosure we do actually have one, use it daily as a home office and it is very well insulated and feels like a proper room - the quality can be very good in them and as a renter quite private even if in a garden of a residence versus say a large apartment building or a house share. Alas no plumbing otherwise I'd consider moving in myself and renting the house out!

lff12 said:

At least with planning you know whats going to be built

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Not sure about that. I have personal experience of someone building an extension that is different to granted permission. It's right on the boundary (without any consent), with under sailing foundations.

Drawings submitted show extension stepped back from boundary by 300mm and parapet roof detail over garage. Built roof has no parapet. There is absolutely no controls or inspections. Councils leave it to neighbours to resolve via courts when they could easily issue an enforcement notice for breach of planning.

Be very afraid if these garden dwelling exemptions go ahead.

lff12 said:

if you have an additional 40m2 unit jerry-connected to the sewerage system in every second garden

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If only and we wouldn’t have much of a rental crisis; the rental market would suffer big time if they were that popular, we’d have threads about ‘who will build and work on all the cabins'.

misemoi said:

I wonder about how many of these actually be built on foot of this.

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I agree and think that the problem will be that the take up might not be great. Those people with big gardens, most suited to these wooden dwellings, tend to have biggish houses already and dare I say less need of additional income.

Owners in mid terrace etc are probably not in a great position to pursue the option due primarily to lack of access and often small gardens.

Rural owners and town dwellers often tend to have bigger sites, sometimes which tends to be to the sides of houses. I presume, these owners would be allowed build to the side facing the road/street and not impacting their views to the back of houses! The references all seem to be to 'back gardens'; presumably side ones would not be excluded?

Tuscany said:

The references all seem to be to 'back gardens'; presumably side ones would not be excluded?

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I would expect that the exemption will only apply where the cabin is fully behind the rear of the house.