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Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien will today issue a de facto ban on new cohabitation developments, which the Taoiseach previously warned could be turned into “glorified housing.”
O’Brien has told officials that he is concerned about the volume of coexistence developments in the pipeline and planned locations, as well as their potential to undermine government housing policies and push up land prices.
He made the decision after receiving a review of the guidelines for coexistence, issued in 2018 by former minister, Eoghan Murphy of Fine Gael.
In an email to officials, seen by The Irish Times, Mr O’Brien says he has decided to amend the 2018 guidelines “to seek to restrict all future coexistence business development in Ireland”.
The guidelines were widely criticized, including by O’Brien when he was a housing spokesperson for Fianna Fáil, although advocates of coexistence argue that it could ease pressure on the housing system and cater to a particular demographic niche.
The guidelines allowed for 12-square-meter bedrooms, smaller than a parking space for people with disabilities, although most of the bed spaces envisaged in the planning applications submitted so far are larger.
O’Brien wrote: “Given the unprecedented nature of these developments, I am concerned that the scale of the developments is moving away from the niche number of units to which the concept originally pointed to a significantly larger role in the housing system. “.
He said the number of units in process was similar to the limit imposed in the Greater Manchester area, on a pro-rata basis. The developments allowed and those already presented will not be affected by the new policy.
The location of the proposed developments, he said, “was not in line with the originally envisaged high-density urban centers,” while “inappropriate locations far from the central city center have undermined the concept.”
So far, there have been 14 cohabitation requests: five approved and two rejected. Seven more are being considered. A total of 1,670 beds have been approved or are in the planning process.
O’Brien told officials that the coexistence could “potentially have a negative impact” on the government’s program goals to deliver 50,000 social housing units and to focus more on home ownership and rental cost models. There was also the risk that due to the number of beds in a single development and the number of applications, the developments could drive up land prices.
Mr. O’Brien will sign a regulation today to give effect to his decision, in the form of a specific planning policy requirement with a presumption against the granting of a permit for coexistence or shared development.
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