Developers oppose council apartments plan

Dublin City Council plans to force developers to increase apartment sizes and make them more "family-friendly" have been met with strong opposition from developers and estate agents.

The opposition centres on a claim apartments will become more expensive and difficult to build.

The council's draft guidelines Achieving Liveable Sustainable New Apartment Homes for Dublin City, were published in May and submissions invited on them.

It wants apartment sizes increased by an average of 25 per cent, with more three bedroom apartments, fewer one-bedroom apartments and all to have more storage space.

The council is proposing to only grant planning permission for one-bedroom apartments with a minimum floor space of 55sq m (currently 45sq m), two-bedroom apartments with a minimum of 80sq m (currently 65sq m) and three-bedroom apartments are a minimum of 100sq m (currently 80sq m).

It wants a "dual aspect" in all apartments and to ensure 85 per cent of apartments in a complex have windows on two sides. It also wants at least half of all apartments in a development to have windows in their kitchens.

It is also proposed to increase ceiling heights which will be altered from 2.4m to 2.7m.

Some 32 submissions were received from such groups as the Irish Wheelchair Association, the Irish Home Builders Association, the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, the Combat Poverty Agency as well as a number of architectural and real estate firms.

Treasury Holdings said the target of 80 per cent of apartments to be 80sq m "is too high and will have significant effects on the price . . . The maximum of 20 per cent one-bed apartments is too low".Estate agents Hooke MacDonald described the guidelines as "unreasonable unrealistic", saying they could "seriously affect affordability and supply of new homes".

The Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland said: "It is not appropriate that all apartments in every development must comply with the sizes proposed as there is a trend to smaller household sizes and a significant increase in one-person households."

Moreover, it also said prices will increase and calls the target of 50 per cent of all apartment kitchens having windows "undesirable".

O'Briain Breary Architects said the guidelines are "premature" and added that they "appear to be the most demanding apartment floor-area standards in Europe".

"There has been insufficient research, there is lack of coherent argument for the guidelines and inadequate thought has been given to the implications of the guidelines."

The Children's Research Centre in Trinity College Dublin, however, says the guidelines "will potentially have positive impacts on the quality of homes and environments for children and families in low-income families."

The housing charity Threshold, which is campaigning for the eradication of bed-sits, called on the council to encourage developers to "construct well designed studio units of between 26sq m and 33sq m as an alternative to poor quality bed-sit accommodation".