Tag Archives: Student Accomodation

Vector Motors former car showroom on Goatstown Road, Dublin 14; proposed student accomodation on the site close to UCD

Goatstown, Dublin 14.

CIS Ireland writes:

A strategic planning application has been granted by An Bord Pleanála for a €18m student accommodation development of 239 bed-spaces at the Vector Motors Site…

€18m – Student Accommodation (CIS)

Previously: O’Reilly-Hyland pays over €6.6m to secure high-profile south Dublin lands (Irish Tmes, September 11 ,2019)

Oh.

Talbot Hotel, Stillorgan, County Dublin (Daft)

Laura Gaynor

“I once went looking at a place which was €700 for a matchbox room in South Dublin (no wardrobe space). I didn’t get it…. There was a rule that you couldn’t use the shower for more than 5 minutes or the rent would go up.

There was no bath either. The prospective landlady said, no boyfriends, no skateboards, no baths, no showers over 5 minutes, no staying at the weekends ….

“The price you’re paying now, for a shared room, is the price you would have paid for your own room a few years ago…. Someone quoted me €500 to be sharing a room with one another.

Broadcaster and student Laura Gaynor on a  RTÉ Radio One Today with Sean O’Rourke discussion on student housing yesterday.

Student accommodation‘No boyfriends, no skateboards, no baths, no showers over 5 minutes, no staying at the weekends’ (Today with Sean O’Rourke, RTÉ)

 digs

 Are you a student?

Without a roof?

Read on.

H writes:

We are two final year university students who live in Dublin and who wish to express our profound discontent with some of the situations we found ourselves in during the housing crisis that took place this summer in the Irish Capital, and the clear discrimination against students, which is common practice in the rental market.

Between June and September, we were actively looking for private accommodation in Dublin. We sent several hundreds of emails, made hundreds of phone calls, many of which were from abroad, went to numerous viewings and spent a lot of time, money and energy looking for a place. This house hunt was long, stressful and, overall, a very unpleasant experience which resulted in us sacrificing a large part of our summer, spare time after work, family time, and the possibility to advance with college work (readings, dissertation, etc).

We finally found a place two weeks before the start of the academic year. A place that we are not entirely satisfied with, but had to take because we had no other decent offers. We are somewhat relieved that we were lucky enough to have found something, as we are very aware of the fact that many students were not as lucky and are therefore forced to commute, live in hostels or even have to take a year out of college.

One of us is a final year student in the faculty of arts and humanities, who worked the whole summer in a well-respected office in Dublin and will continue to work part-time throughout the academic year.

The other is a final year Political Science and Geography student who works during the summer months and is financially supported by her father who works in one of the European Institutions in Brussels. Both of us have letters of reference from all our previous landlords stating we are responsible tenants, that the rent and all utility bills have always been paid on time and that we left our previous flats in good condition. Furthermore, we both have good work references from well-respected institutions.

Having such documents, one must wonder how it took us three months to find a mediocre residence.

To us, the answer is very simple. The housing crisis meant that it was hard for everyone to find a place in Dublin due to the fact that this year there was a 43% drop in supply in the rental market and a 7.5% increase in rental prices, but in particular: students have a clear disadvantage and are discriminated against.

Many, many housing ads online clearly state “no students” or “young professionals only.” Many times, when we called or sent an email asking for a viewing, the agent or the advertiser simply explained to us that we have no chance of being considered as potential tenants, because we are students, and we are simply wasting our time trying. Many times, we were told that the landlord or landlady will just not accept any students.

Many times, the agent or advertiser was simply rude or condescending. We do understand that the real estate agencies were under tremendous pressure as they had to deal with this huge demand for housing, but that does not, in any way, justify being rude or their behaviour vis-à-vis students.

We can assure you that it is extremely frustrating when the whole day, phone call after phone call, you are being rejected just because of your current occupation. We knew the definition of the word “discrimination,” but during this house hunt we disconcertedly learnt new things about what being discriminated against really means.

The Equal Status Act of 2000 promotes equality and prohibits certain forms of discrimination. It also applies to lettings.

In an article that is part of a Ten Step Law series written by Roddy Tyrrell, a Board Member of the Property Registration Authority it clearly says that:

“When you are satisfied with your prospective tenant’s ability to pay their rent it is time to interview them. Be careful with the questions you ask as equality law prohibits you from refusing to offer accommodation or from terminating a tenancy on any of the following nine grounds: gender, marital status, family status, sexual orientation, religious belief, age, disability, race, membership of the traveller community. You should base your decisions on the merits of the prospective tenants.”

In our experience, our mere requests for accommodation or viewings were often declined before we even had the chance to prove our ability to pay rent. All this on the grounds that we are students. We strongly believe that this is utterly unfair.

It is true that the Equal Status Act of 2000 does not state that discrimination on the bases that someone being a student is illegal. However, we believe that being a student is, in the majority of cases, closely related to age.Continue reading →

cryingchair

Roofless Students Grace McGrath and Connlaoth McDuffie

The launch in Dublin today of a campaign by The Union of Students in Ireland to encourage home-owners in Dublin to “consider housing a student during term-time“.

Wait, come back.

They say

“As a short-term measure to support the initiative, the Union of Students in Ireland has put together a simple website, allowing home owners to list their spare rooms and their conditions, with the objective of providing students with contacts for those willing to help. The system also allows for landlords and agents to place their available accommodation online – and it’s free to use. ..”

Fair play though, in fairness.

Any takers?

Pictures: Conor McCabe

accomodation

Hostels!?

Bags the top bunk

Via University Times:

An email sent by the Accommodation Office to students rejected in a round of offers for on-campus accommodation today includes a list of alternative halls of residences in Dublin. However, with the exception of the as-of-yet-unallocated Trinity Halls, all 3,000 places in purpose-built student accommodation in Dublin are filled, with the National College of Ireland (NCI) rooms having booked up within two hours of applications opening. The document [above] contained in the email also lists twenty-four hostels. It is unclear whether the hostels are intended to be for temporary lodgings or for use during the whole academic term.
‘Some opt to spend multiple nights sleeping on couches or in hostels every week, others aren’t even able to attain that. There is now a real danger that this will start to impact on retention rates and it requires immediate attention from Government,’[said]Laura Harmon, President of USI [Union of Students In Ireland].

Accommodation Crisis Looks Set to Reach Critical Mass (Jack Leahy, University Times)