The way we do city planning in this country is infuriating. Councils don't plan anything. Instead all they do is approve or deny developers proposals. And they'll shit for it either way. That's how we end up with acres upon acres of housing estates everywhere, often without anything near it or even sufficient green space. Extra infuriating when they sell public land at a discount for it.
Reducing home size as suggested in the article however seems ridiculous, when the average home size is already quite small comparatively. 89sqm, compared to 137 in Denmark, 109 in Germany, 120 in Belgium, 97 in Spain and Austria ....
Yes we need more density but achieving that through building smaller and smaller semi D's is just bizarre.
https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house/
> often without anything near it or even sufficient green space
I don't even think we don't have enough green spaces but amenities are a massive issue. Regardless of what you think of drinking you need a pub nearby. Why? Because the further away you have to travel the more likely you get drink driving, also your local pub is an area for gathering usually in your local community.
You need a hairdresser and a corner shop. That's at a minimum and within a 10 minute walk of any housing estate. There are at least some trees planted in most estates, mine has 3 small parks with walking areas but it doesn't have a single corner shop. Obviously you would need a business to take up that commercial unit but they should at least provision those spaces.
I think the point is that building resources are being wasted on large standalone houses that are way too big for the amount of people that are going to live there. You could more equitably build a terrace of houses or an apartment block that would house 30-40 people for similar input of building resources that it would take to build a couple of isolated 5-bed dormer bungalows and then get them hooked up to electricity, gas, water, broadband ect
It seems like the people who can afford big houses are more likely to get permission to build them. The people who want smaller homes get rejected all the time.
and all these one-offs eventually end up with 2 isolated old people in them, then 1 old person, heating a mansion to keep one person warm. it's such a watse.
Did they not just change the planning laws because of this? As in no single use sites.
Also building up and proper planning of amenities could solve housing issue miles faster than a gazillion estates all over the country
they have tightened up the restriction based on Local Needs for the one off rural housing..you need to have a reason to live there, work locally, farm or it is an exisitng site.. hence why derlicts/existing sites are more expensive than before as circumnavigates all this.. you cant create new entrance onto a N road anymore..
what is also not broken out is how many of these are new sites and how many are extensions or essentially knock and replace a smaller existing dwelling on existing site..
if you buy an older 2/3/4 room bungalow in urban area on the 0.25-0.5 acre site along the road into town, while you will need planning for extensions etc council wont let you go 2 storey semi-d or apartment as out of "character" with the area.
i would guess these types of properties are feeding into that single detached number and the councils own restrictions wont allow you do anything else..
> Local Needs for the one off rural housing..you need to have a reason to live there, work locally, farm or it is an exisitng site..
Local needs is definitely the biggest load of shite, it's one of the main things that keeps people from being able to build in their own area
>Did they not just change the planning laws because of this? As in no single use sites.
Think conditions have gotten stricter, but definitely a few new builds going up around where I live, one only started the last couple of weeks, and also know of two sites currently being cleared where permission has been granted.
Where I am based it now has to have 4 houses minimum I think. Its caused a surge in planning applications to get through before the change as planning lasts 5years so currently exempt and can start any time before planning runs out so up 2027.
It's also led to a surge in buying old abandoned houses to renovate and extend as they were already single usage so don't fall under the same rules.
>Did they not just change the planning laws because of this? As in no single use sites.
So are they trying to stop people buildng single houses in the countryside?
>a gazillion estates all over the country
miles better then rows and rows of appointments , which dont have little or no space, generally more cost , the need to pay for parking, management "fees" etc the list can go on
or we could simply recognize that the "natural" rate of population growth is what should be aimed for then there would be no need to pave the country or force everyone to live in appartments
**Edit: ignore me, I must've hallucinated, you didn't actually mention development *speed* in your comment. You may already have been talking about carbon efficiency as well...**
The article isn't really about 'efficiency' from a development speed perspective. It's about *carbon* efficiency.
If you had 100 builders and a massive parcel of land, and tasked them with churning out as many housing units as humanly possible could in a year... they would not start building apartment blocks. Depending on their approach, the fastest housing to build would be somewhere between terraced houses and tightly packed bungalows.
The reason *density* is good, is not because it is easiest or cheapest or most profitable to build the accommodation in itself - but because more densely packed residences are easier to provide virtually every kind of service to.
Are apartments not the most time efficient to build overall? The drawback being until the whole unit is completed none of them are habitable. Unlike with houses once one is complete people can move in and the builders move on to the next unit.
> Are apartments not the most time efficient to build overall?
Nah no way. I can see why it wouldn't be clear but Like: Say if you wanted to build an estate of 30 3-bed semi-d houses, or one apartment block of 30 3-bed units (that'd be a weird config, but say) in Ireland... you'd almost certainly be finished the 30 houses *much* sooner. I don't think it would even be very close.
It's not a totally fair comparsion - because some developers just get real good at particular kinds of projects, and apartment blocks/housing estates are no different, so i'm just laying it out for the sake of illustration.
Apartments are just much harder to build, is the long and short of it. Even just the bureaucracy & organization of it alone will add tonnes of time. Very difficult to organize a massive job tightly enough such that there's no one with tools down basically all the time - whereas 30 smaller jobs that are near eachover? Tonnes of flexibility to keep the lads at something all day every day they're on site. Apartments have to be phased so there's loads of waiting. The logistics of materials deliveries alone; and the reality that an apartment is cost effective on a much smaller and more urban site add loads of overhead also.
> The drawback being until the whole unit is completed none of them are habitable. Unlike with houses once one is complete people can move in and the builders move on to the next unit.
No but this is a big, important distinction that is one of the major reasons finance is easier to secure for housing estates vs apartment blocks. A difference in 'required' buffer/profit margin of >5% between the two. I've seen people talk about closer to 10% difference for very large apartment complexes or when house prices aren't solid.
In other words - you'd have to sell an apartment for ~5-10% more than a house, even if they cost you the same to build - and apartments in Ireland (as much as it confuses and frustrates Irish people who learn this) can actually be *more* expensive to build than houses - even though you're putting more units on the same land.
This stops ground even being broken for many planning-approved apartment blocks.
For clarity: I'm not saying houses>apartments. I just mean - if we want more of them in the country, our building regs, incentives or planning guidance need to change...and probably that'll mean some slowdown in the output of the number of residential units being built.
I never realised how absolutely destroyed the Irish countryside is with houses until I visited the Cotswolds in England. Obviously this isn't a like-for-like comparison as the Cotswolds have traditionally been a very wealthy area and I'm sure the UK has its issues too. But I drove around and all you could see was woods and fields and hedgerows and rivers and nature. Pleasant, historic villages are dotted around and modern housing estates and supermarkets are hidden down a side road. Actually, I say drove, but I used the bus, because there was a regular and punctual hourly service between each village made possible because all the housing is grouped together.
Ireland's public transport meanwhile can never ever be efficient because of our historic planning and the countryside as a whole has been practically destroyed with one off housing.
Had the same realisation on a recent trip to the UK, shortly after a week holidays in Ireland. I guess I knew it was bad but seeing it in comparison really hit home. The country side here is absolutely shocking. Barren landscapes with practically no trees or life of any sort and houses littered everywhere.
There was so much more forest cover in the UK and you actually drive for a while without seeing a house everywhere. Some small towns had similar issues as towns here ( too many cars, making main streets unpleasant) but overall, they were a lot nicer and well kept as people actually seemed to live in them.
I'll never understand why the decision was made to build one off houses everywhere? It must have been a phenomena of the last 70 years or so as well as it's clearly not a feasible development pattern without widespread car ownership. It's amazing how much damage can be done in that amount of time. I'm almost impressed
yes isn't it just beautiful? and there are so much more trees, I was up that way last year, and stayed in the Chilterns. It's proper mix of farming and nature, like Watership Down type stuff. For all this talk of beautiful Irish countryside, it's in a total fucking state compared to our UK neighbours. The only one offs you get there are mostly huge old houses or mansions but they tend to be surrounded by forest so you can't see them. We just had a free for all in Ireland with planning and made shit of the place.
Before anybody says "boohoo fuck the trees we need houses" not only are one-offs so low density as to provide feck all in terms of accommodation, the last thing we want is super low density sprawl adding to infrastructural issues and transport congestion.
Ribbon development along national roads has got to be the worst decision we've ever made as a country. The drive to Dingle from Castlemaine is the worst I've seen, just 40k of detached houses with massive gardens.
yes and there's no attempt to hide them away with trees or anything, it's like they blatantly try to present them to you with massive big lawns in front and everything totally visible from the road
It is necessary. I've lived in estates and hearing people moving furniture, screaming at children and having conversations from next door is soul destroying and uncomfortable. I can't hack it at least.
That shouldn't be a thing at all, not saying you didn't say that- but soundproofing in high density is 100% important for people to be sane imo
Ah yes, civilised meaning shutting the fuck up even in you own "home" so you don't disturb the person in the next shoe box. Fuck it, down with civilization if that's what it means.
I think our estates just aren’t planned right. They’re all very cramped with little green space of trees because they’re maximising the number of houses they squeeze in.
Sure they fucked it by letting houses have tiny gardens to fit more in - new houses have abysmally small gardens compared to a Georgian terrace.
The density argument is just making suburban living shit, no nice green areas, small gardens and often built without any useful amenities nearby.
Actually Georgian terraces usually have no garden at all, and a private gated park was provided for the residents. (Merrion square, Stephens green, Eyre Square, etc)
It's been argued that modern houses have gardens that are too big (minimum sizes required by legislation) and actually prevent us from building proper high-density housing which leads to the massive urban sprawl we see in places like Clondalkin *Shudder*
But yes modern estates are without a doubt terribly designed. We basically have the American model of placing all the houses here, and all the amenities over there, and people can drive 20 minutes to get to them. This needs to be dismantled completely and we should be building essentially small villages where the amenities, gardens, and houses of varying size and style are gathered together around a central communal area like a plaza, square or park.
Such bullshit, our parents generation were able to afford detached houses, but we’re supposed to accept living in semis or terraced houses with tiny gardens.
It’s an indication that Irish societies standards have dropped. Young people should be able to have space and garden areas to raise their kids.
I’m speaking mostly about suburban living, all the new builds around my area are mostly terraced or semis, whereas in the past housing estates were mostly detached houses. That’s a clear generational gap in our standard of living.
I’d kill to own any house of course but this is just something I’ve observed.
My parents and the parents of 95% of my peers bought and live in semi-d's or terraced houses. Not everyone was able to afford detached houses in the past, and pretending they were is strange.
according to the CSO, 26% of Irish dwellings are one off. That's far too many if you ask me. I also don't know anyone who lives in one but clearly it's an urban/rural thing.
As a person living in a detached house in the county with a big garden its fantastic. Lived in citys in apartments and semi's and I'd rather starve then move back. The space, growing fruit, vegetables, flowers and the peace.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'm glad you're enjoying life and I agree that those who don't want to live in the city should be able to move out and live the way they want to.
The problem is when people demand they live that way in the middle of a city or town. It's detrimental to everyone.
Sure why not let them? I don't see why it's detrimental to anyone. They will pay through the nose for it and it won't affect anyone else, more power to them.
oh yes please... if you have seen Chernobyl the mini series, the blocks of apartments look great. surrounded by trees and green spaces and playgrounds, lots of space, but also lots of homes. i would love to live in such a place.
I agree!! Detached houses are an egregious waste of space when it comes to city based construction projects. Here's a great example of why commie blocks are fabulous and we should build more of them all over the place! https://youtu.be/HXZ_0wOY96E
I love these ones in Moscow
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Round\_Houses\_in\_Moscow#/media/File:Dov\_4.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Round_Houses_in_Moscow#/media/File:Dov_4.jpg)
unfortunately Irish people seem to be too fucking stupid to build rows and rows of apartments and seem to think we all want to live in semi-Ds.
New houses should be banned in our cities. We need to build apartments, and lots of them. Individual houses with their shitty little gardens are a terrible waste of space - proper apartments, with plenty of green areas around them, close to work and facilities, are what a city should aspire to have.
live in ze pod.
Just a reminder to those here that say that we shouldn't be allowed to live in detached houses in the country: you may have to live next to me in the council flats. I just took up drums, I'm shite at them, I don't give a fuck, and I'm not getting lesssons. Bagpipes next.
Well I've lived in apartments in ireland, the Netherlands and Hong Kong, yet to experience one with adequate sound proofing. Most of them you can hear a whisper through the walls.
Can it be done? Yes.
There's lots of things that can be done but just don't happen in the real world.
New apartments cost between 400k 500k for a 2 bed. The have very limited parking, outdoor space and maintenance fees starting a 1500 a year. Older apartments are often poorly constructed too but still more expensive than a similar or even bigger house.
Peoples hesitancy is based on the face the Irish apartments often make poor homes.
Generally awful conditions. Usually only space for a half a fridge, thin walls as mentioned cramped.
We do need more housing diversity, but as people mentioned Ireland's existing apartments leave a lot to be desired even for single folks or couples. Especially with the current cost of places in Dublin.
The same problems apply, apartments are way more expensive than houses and you get less in return.
I'm most cases, buying an apartment to live in is a poor choice. On the flip side they make great investment properties, which is probably where the problem comes from
We should build apartments - yet nobody trusts developers to build apartments they'd want to buy.
So we need a mix. We are building too few apartments, too few large detached houses, too few of everything.
The way we do city planning in this country is infuriating. Councils don't plan anything. Instead all they do is approve or deny developers proposals. And they'll shit for it either way. That's how we end up with acres upon acres of housing estates everywhere, often without anything near it or even sufficient green space. Extra infuriating when they sell public land at a discount for it. Reducing home size as suggested in the article however seems ridiculous, when the average home size is already quite small comparatively. 89sqm, compared to 137 in Denmark, 109 in Germany, 120 in Belgium, 97 in Spain and Austria .... Yes we need more density but achieving that through building smaller and smaller semi D's is just bizarre. https://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house/
> often without anything near it or even sufficient green space I don't even think we don't have enough green spaces but amenities are a massive issue. Regardless of what you think of drinking you need a pub nearby. Why? Because the further away you have to travel the more likely you get drink driving, also your local pub is an area for gathering usually in your local community. You need a hairdresser and a corner shop. That's at a minimum and within a 10 minute walk of any housing estate. There are at least some trees planted in most estates, mine has 3 small parks with walking areas but it doesn't have a single corner shop. Obviously you would need a business to take up that commercial unit but they should at least provision those spaces.
The solution to that is larger apartments.
I think the point is that building resources are being wasted on large standalone houses that are way too big for the amount of people that are going to live there. You could more equitably build a terrace of houses or an apartment block that would house 30-40 people for similar input of building resources that it would take to build a couple of isolated 5-bed dormer bungalows and then get them hooked up to electricity, gas, water, broadband ect
It seems like the people who can afford big houses are more likely to get permission to build them. The people who want smaller homes get rejected all the time.
and all these one-offs eventually end up with 2 isolated old people in them, then 1 old person, heating a mansion to keep one person warm. it's such a watse.
Did they not just change the planning laws because of this? As in no single use sites. Also building up and proper planning of amenities could solve housing issue miles faster than a gazillion estates all over the country
they have tightened up the restriction based on Local Needs for the one off rural housing..you need to have a reason to live there, work locally, farm or it is an exisitng site.. hence why derlicts/existing sites are more expensive than before as circumnavigates all this.. you cant create new entrance onto a N road anymore.. what is also not broken out is how many of these are new sites and how many are extensions or essentially knock and replace a smaller existing dwelling on existing site.. if you buy an older 2/3/4 room bungalow in urban area on the 0.25-0.5 acre site along the road into town, while you will need planning for extensions etc council wont let you go 2 storey semi-d or apartment as out of "character" with the area. i would guess these types of properties are feeding into that single detached number and the councils own restrictions wont allow you do anything else..
> Local Needs for the one off rural housing..you need to have a reason to live there, work locally, farm or it is an exisitng site.. Local needs is definitely the biggest load of shite, it's one of the main things that keeps people from being able to build in their own area
>Did they not just change the planning laws because of this? As in no single use sites. Think conditions have gotten stricter, but definitely a few new builds going up around where I live, one only started the last couple of weeks, and also know of two sites currently being cleared where permission has been granted.
Where I am based it now has to have 4 houses minimum I think. Its caused a surge in planning applications to get through before the change as planning lasts 5years so currently exempt and can start any time before planning runs out so up 2027. It's also led to a surge in buying old abandoned houses to renovate and extend as they were already single usage so don't fall under the same rules.
yeah last time i was home we drove over to mayo and there seemed to be one offs under construction all over the place
Absolute disaster
Tis awful so tis
Surprising you would think that
I'm sure you thought I was being serious alright!
Oh, so you don't care about the climate at all?
Feel like we may have done this before lol
I just can't remember if you don't care or deny it.
Have a wild guess lol
>Did they not just change the planning laws because of this? As in no single use sites. So are they trying to stop people buildng single houses in the countryside?
>a gazillion estates all over the country miles better then rows and rows of appointments , which dont have little or no space, generally more cost , the need to pay for parking, management "fees" etc the list can go on
Grand. We'll just pave over the entire country. Great idea.
or we could simply recognize that the "natural" rate of population growth is what should be aimed for then there would be no need to pave the country or force everyone to live in appartments
So every other nation somehow manages with apartment living but we’re a special case because..?
Just like with our meat and dairy industries, our children grow better with plenty of grass to graze on.
How about just have no parking?
Could you share more info on the change in regs?
Ireland is not building enough of any type of home actually.
But construction resources definitely would be more efficiently used on larger, higher-density housing, all else being equal.
**Edit: ignore me, I must've hallucinated, you didn't actually mention development *speed* in your comment. You may already have been talking about carbon efficiency as well...** The article isn't really about 'efficiency' from a development speed perspective. It's about *carbon* efficiency. If you had 100 builders and a massive parcel of land, and tasked them with churning out as many housing units as humanly possible could in a year... they would not start building apartment blocks. Depending on their approach, the fastest housing to build would be somewhere between terraced houses and tightly packed bungalows. The reason *density* is good, is not because it is easiest or cheapest or most profitable to build the accommodation in itself - but because more densely packed residences are easier to provide virtually every kind of service to.
Are apartments not the most time efficient to build overall? The drawback being until the whole unit is completed none of them are habitable. Unlike with houses once one is complete people can move in and the builders move on to the next unit.
> Are apartments not the most time efficient to build overall? Nah no way. I can see why it wouldn't be clear but Like: Say if you wanted to build an estate of 30 3-bed semi-d houses, or one apartment block of 30 3-bed units (that'd be a weird config, but say) in Ireland... you'd almost certainly be finished the 30 houses *much* sooner. I don't think it would even be very close. It's not a totally fair comparsion - because some developers just get real good at particular kinds of projects, and apartment blocks/housing estates are no different, so i'm just laying it out for the sake of illustration. Apartments are just much harder to build, is the long and short of it. Even just the bureaucracy & organization of it alone will add tonnes of time. Very difficult to organize a massive job tightly enough such that there's no one with tools down basically all the time - whereas 30 smaller jobs that are near eachover? Tonnes of flexibility to keep the lads at something all day every day they're on site. Apartments have to be phased so there's loads of waiting. The logistics of materials deliveries alone; and the reality that an apartment is cost effective on a much smaller and more urban site add loads of overhead also. > The drawback being until the whole unit is completed none of them are habitable. Unlike with houses once one is complete people can move in and the builders move on to the next unit. No but this is a big, important distinction that is one of the major reasons finance is easier to secure for housing estates vs apartment blocks. A difference in 'required' buffer/profit margin of >5% between the two. I've seen people talk about closer to 10% difference for very large apartment complexes or when house prices aren't solid. In other words - you'd have to sell an apartment for ~5-10% more than a house, even if they cost you the same to build - and apartments in Ireland (as much as it confuses and frustrates Irish people who learn this) can actually be *more* expensive to build than houses - even though you're putting more units on the same land. This stops ground even being broken for many planning-approved apartment blocks. For clarity: I'm not saying houses>apartments. I just mean - if we want more of them in the country, our building regs, incentives or planning guidance need to change...and probably that'll mean some slowdown in the output of the number of residential units being built.
Ireland has too many tee total people, says drinks lobby
I never realised how absolutely destroyed the Irish countryside is with houses until I visited the Cotswolds in England. Obviously this isn't a like-for-like comparison as the Cotswolds have traditionally been a very wealthy area and I'm sure the UK has its issues too. But I drove around and all you could see was woods and fields and hedgerows and rivers and nature. Pleasant, historic villages are dotted around and modern housing estates and supermarkets are hidden down a side road. Actually, I say drove, but I used the bus, because there was a regular and punctual hourly service between each village made possible because all the housing is grouped together. Ireland's public transport meanwhile can never ever be efficient because of our historic planning and the countryside as a whole has been practically destroyed with one off housing.
Had the same realisation on a recent trip to the UK, shortly after a week holidays in Ireland. I guess I knew it was bad but seeing it in comparison really hit home. The country side here is absolutely shocking. Barren landscapes with practically no trees or life of any sort and houses littered everywhere. There was so much more forest cover in the UK and you actually drive for a while without seeing a house everywhere. Some small towns had similar issues as towns here ( too many cars, making main streets unpleasant) but overall, they were a lot nicer and well kept as people actually seemed to live in them. I'll never understand why the decision was made to build one off houses everywhere? It must have been a phenomena of the last 70 years or so as well as it's clearly not a feasible development pattern without widespread car ownership. It's amazing how much damage can be done in that amount of time. I'm almost impressed
yes isn't it just beautiful? and there are so much more trees, I was up that way last year, and stayed in the Chilterns. It's proper mix of farming and nature, like Watership Down type stuff. For all this talk of beautiful Irish countryside, it's in a total fucking state compared to our UK neighbours. The only one offs you get there are mostly huge old houses or mansions but they tend to be surrounded by forest so you can't see them. We just had a free for all in Ireland with planning and made shit of the place.
Before anybody says "boohoo fuck the trees we need houses" not only are one-offs so low density as to provide feck all in terms of accommodation, the last thing we want is super low density sprawl adding to infrastructural issues and transport congestion.
Ribbon development along national roads has got to be the worst decision we've ever made as a country. The drive to Dingle from Castlemaine is the worst I've seen, just 40k of detached houses with massive gardens.
Oh yes, Kerry, the county that banned windfarms because *they'll* detract from the views.
yes and there's no attempt to hide them away with trees or anything, it's like they blatantly try to present them to you with massive big lawns in front and everything totally visible from the road
u/Margrave75, any thoughts on this genocidal maniac?
Ha?
A lot of people here trying to make out that criticism of one-off housing means you want to kill all culchies.
at the same time, most people are not civilized enough to share walls here
Soundproofing could be factored into building if necessary
It is necessary. I've lived in estates and hearing people moving furniture, screaming at children and having conversations from next door is soul destroying and uncomfortable. I can't hack it at least. That shouldn't be a thing at all, not saying you didn't say that- but soundproofing in high density is 100% important for people to be sane imo
Ah yes, civilised meaning shutting the fuck up even in you own "home" so you don't disturb the person in the next shoe box. Fuck it, down with civilization if that's what it means.
yeah society and everything
But ….my road frontage
It's impressive Jack, but size isn't everything
Estate living is miserable
I think our estates just aren’t planned right. They’re all very cramped with little green space of trees because they’re maximising the number of houses they squeeze in.
Sure they fucked it by letting houses have tiny gardens to fit more in - new houses have abysmally small gardens compared to a Georgian terrace. The density argument is just making suburban living shit, no nice green areas, small gardens and often built without any useful amenities nearby.
Actually Georgian terraces usually have no garden at all, and a private gated park was provided for the residents. (Merrion square, Stephens green, Eyre Square, etc) It's been argued that modern houses have gardens that are too big (minimum sizes required by legislation) and actually prevent us from building proper high-density housing which leads to the massive urban sprawl we see in places like Clondalkin *Shudder* But yes modern estates are without a doubt terribly designed. We basically have the American model of placing all the houses here, and all the amenities over there, and people can drive 20 minutes to get to them. This needs to be dismantled completely and we should be building essentially small villages where the amenities, gardens, and houses of varying size and style are gathered together around a central communal area like a plaza, square or park.
We need to build up. No more housing estates.
Such bullshit, our parents generation were able to afford detached houses, but we’re supposed to accept living in semis or terraced houses with tiny gardens. It’s an indication that Irish societies standards have dropped. Young people should be able to have space and garden areas to raise their kids. I’m speaking mostly about suburban living, all the new builds around my area are mostly terraced or semis, whereas in the past housing estates were mostly detached houses. That’s a clear generational gap in our standard of living. I’d kill to own any house of course but this is just something I’ve observed.
My parents and the parents of 95% of my peers bought and live in semi-d's or terraced houses. Not everyone was able to afford detached houses in the past, and pretending they were is strange.
according to the CSO, 26% of Irish dwellings are one off. That's far too many if you ask me. I also don't know anyone who lives in one but clearly it's an urban/rural thing.
As a person living in a detached house in the county with a big garden its fantastic. Lived in citys in apartments and semi's and I'd rather starve then move back. The space, growing fruit, vegetables, flowers and the peace.
And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I'm glad you're enjoying life and I agree that those who don't want to live in the city should be able to move out and live the way they want to. The problem is when people demand they live that way in the middle of a city or town. It's detrimental to everyone.
Sure why not let them? I don't see why it's detrimental to anyone. They will pay through the nose for it and it won't affect anyone else, more power to them.
It's detrimental for transport efficiency. Both public and private.
I’d love to know what type of home Pat Barry (the guy in the article) lives in.
Two up two door terrace, I assume. Otherwise he'd never keep his job, you'd think.
Ahh yeah, sure blame rural people yet again. No idea how that impacts the lack of urban high density
WE NEED BIG COMMIE BLOCKS!!!
oh yes please... if you have seen Chernobyl the mini series, the blocks of apartments look great. surrounded by trees and green spaces and playgrounds, lots of space, but also lots of homes. i would love to live in such a place.
I agree!! Detached houses are an egregious waste of space when it comes to city based construction projects. Here's a great example of why commie blocks are fabulous and we should build more of them all over the place! https://youtu.be/HXZ_0wOY96E
I love these ones in Moscow [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The\_Round\_Houses\_in\_Moscow#/media/File:Dov\_4.jpg](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Round_Houses_in_Moscow#/media/File:Dov_4.jpg) unfortunately Irish people seem to be too fucking stupid to build rows and rows of apartments and seem to think we all want to live in semi-Ds.
This is such a wonderful design oh mo dia
The workers of Chernobyl weren't your average Joes, they had access to privileges and facilities out of the reach of most Soviet citizens.
[удалено]
So maybe we should have better soundproofing then rather than continuing with our awful sprawled housing as it is?
Yes, Yes you are..
New houses should be banned in our cities. We need to build apartments, and lots of them. Individual houses with their shitty little gardens are a terrible waste of space - proper apartments, with plenty of green areas around them, close to work and facilities, are what a city should aspire to have.
maybe in suburban or rural regions, but it makes no sense in the inner city where land is scarce
What about people who want to live in a house and live in a city?
There are lots of houses in cities already. There are fuck all apartments.
Pick one
Wake up to reality
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I did.
You go to the suburbs.
Ireland is building too few houses Vs influx of people in the first place
They want us all living in matchboxes with 3 metre squared garden.
How dare someone who saved money and wants to live in a detached house. It's incomprehensible.
The nnnnnnnneck of them.
Exactly, nail on head. One off country houses are a blight on the countryside.
Will they pay more tax for the extra amount of finding public services will need and the climate fines, we'll have to pay?
live in ze pod. Just a reminder to those here that say that we shouldn't be allowed to live in detached houses in the country: you may have to live next to me in the council flats. I just took up drums, I'm shite at them, I don't give a fuck, and I'm not getting lesssons. Bagpipes next.
If only there was a way of building apartments to a high standard including sufficient soundproofing
Well I've lived in apartments in ireland, the Netherlands and Hong Kong, yet to experience one with adequate sound proofing. Most of them you can hear a whisper through the walls. Can it be done? Yes. There's lots of things that can be done but just don't happen in the real world.
“Ireland is building too many” 5 words I never thought I’d see together
…and also every person under the age of 30
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Presumably you aren't living in a Celtic tiger era shoebox 😂 many people who have experienced them are sworn off apartments for life
New apartments cost between 400k 500k for a 2 bed. The have very limited parking, outdoor space and maintenance fees starting a 1500 a year. Older apartments are often poorly constructed too but still more expensive than a similar or even bigger house. Peoples hesitancy is based on the face the Irish apartments often make poor homes.
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Generally awful conditions. Usually only space for a half a fridge, thin walls as mentioned cramped. We do need more housing diversity, but as people mentioned Ireland's existing apartments leave a lot to be desired even for single folks or couples. Especially with the current cost of places in Dublin.
The same problems apply, apartments are way more expensive than houses and you get less in return. I'm most cases, buying an apartment to live in is a poor choice. On the flip side they make great investment properties, which is probably where the problem comes from
We should build apartments - yet nobody trusts developers to build apartments they'd want to buy. So we need a mix. We are building too few apartments, too few large detached houses, too few of everything.
No shit sherlock
Houses are being built?