'Garden homes might seem promising, but could negatively impact vulnerable individuals and families'

Kya deLongchamps has reservations regarding proposed changes to Irish planning law in its current form

An unfettered run on garden homes might seem promising, but it is highly likely in many cases to negatively impact vulnerable individuals and families within a very short time, says Kya deLongchamps. File picture

The exemption for 45sq m backyard dwellings has not passed into law and is still misted in hearsay and political wrangles. I hope it will be trimmed, tailored and tightly managed with logical conditions. 

People desperate for homes are being let down badly by limp government policy and systemic greed. 

There were problems with the proposed legislation, even before the startling shift away from family-centred solutions to an open-market rental model was kited by the Taoiseach. I’m not bothered about properly detailed tiny homes, or precious about what this all might look like in suburban situations. 

However, like many property writers, I am concerned at the slippery speed at which this planning exemption is being shovelled over a housing problem.

An unfettered run on garden homes might seem promising, but it is highly likely in many cases to negatively impact vulnerable individuals and families within a very short time. It puts the elderly at particular risk, and Irish housing charities, including Threshold, have already expressed reservations. 

Many parents, aunts and uncles could be manipulated into surrendering their house for a shed-sit by younger relations eyeing up that larger property. Now, pitched at the open rental market, but shorn of the vital protection of the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) tenancy rules, what happens if an unscrupulous landlord/homeowner gives someone a week’s notice? The Rent-a-Room licence was not designed for this confusing scenario, and the government have bent it into a pretzel.

Surveilling social media, clearly many people are already ordering cabins priced at up to €100,000 for a 45sq m, A-rated building that reaches Irish building regulation standards. 

Some myopic buyers are craning modular buildings not only into gardens, but onto green-field sites ahead of the legislative change

Then there are questions about structural quality, shared utilities, wastewater, and access for the fire brigade. 

What about close neighbours with gardens behind modest fencing, who now have to accept the intrusion of an ebullient young family living with a few metres of their back door — maybe two families either side? With an exemption to planning permission, there’s no chance of appeal. 

If I were the well-heeled owner of a Victorian mansion in D4, I would be thrilled at the prospect of putting in a quaint, block-built guest house reached by a cobbled path without planning restrictions. Otherwise, in its current inception, I’m seriously struggling to find a silver lining.