Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly
Further to the planned diminution of apartment sizes.
…The new guidelines published by the Department of the Environment propose lower standards in terms of floor areas, ceiling heights, storage, lifts, daylight, private and communal amenity space, indeed every aspect of apartment design.
They also preclude local authorities from “specifying conflicting standards in their statutory development plans” – in other words, aiming higher. If the Minister wanted to give the Construction Industry Federation a Christmas gift, this couldn’t be better.
Mr Kelly has denied that his intervention will result in return to the “shoe-box living” of the past. According to him, it’s all about “delivering good, high-quality affordable housing in sufficient numbers to meet growing demand” and this, in turn, should help to reduce rents by increasing the overall supply of apartments. But there can be little doubt that apartment design is to be dumbed-down, in the interests of the marketplace.
Veteran environment journalist Frank McDonald
Dumbing down apartment design (Frank McDonald, The Irish Times)
Yesterday: A Game Of Inches
(Rollingnews)
The shoebox mentality in housing design, will Tom Parlon or Alan Kelly
take up residence in a shoebox.
Of course they would “if it was a shoebox….. for giants”(say it Derek Zoolander)
Kelly is an idiot if he really believes what he says. Complete one at that. If he’s really ‘Labour’ at heart …pffft! …I’m the bast*rd son of Mani.
I’ll echo this as the bastard son of clampers
That makes me your other da <3
Dougal agrees.
another ‘legacy’ to add to his Irish Water one.. between him and Lowry the people of Tipp have a lot to answer for
TBF, north Tipp have a lot to answer for.
*Brushes Mattie McGrath under the carpet*
They’ve had a tough year Labour, what with the kidnapping of Joan & people telling Alan they don’t like him.
I don’t think things are going to improve for them. Their awful legacy will probably live on though, at the expense of the people who voted them in to improve things.
Eh, Marriage Referendum success, implementation of legislation on Collective Bargaining, increase in minimum wage, paid paternity leave, roll out of children’s free GP care, reduction in USC, Unemployment rate down to 8.9% from over 15%, employment rate 1.9 million and growing.
Irish Water now have real time map of water incidents over the whole country
http://www.water.ie/help-centre/service-updates/
I’d say they’ve had a pretty good year.
Keep telling yourself that. People like you are the real problem in this country.
Ad hominem. Have a nice day.
Apologies for playing the man instead of the ball.
I have a hatred for the defending of the indefensible.
The unemployment figures you mention are at best very inacurate, as most people are aware.
Increase in minimum wage, and a lot of the other stuff are a mere re-election tactics, that have only come about recently. No wonder Joan didn’t want an early election. People aren’t stupid.
Marriage ref? I’d say that was a win for the people, but fair play for whatever hand Labour had in bringing it about. They should let it go though, as it wasn’t their success.
To sum up, for Labours term in government (which is about to end), they were shhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttt.
Saint Paul would like you to check yourself before you wreck yourself Fergus
Jobridge, emigration, health system in a shambles, continuation of austerity, reduction in services, privitisation of water, food banks, homeless.
A good year for who is the question..
A good year for FG?
A terrible year for democracy
Privatisation of water won’t happen. Not on my watch :)
+1
You’re a real fupping ray of sunshine
Bless you my child
dubloony, according to IMF unemployment is at 25%, but don’t let facts get in the way of your FG bottom kissing
Let’s examine in more detail:
roll out of children’s free GP care, This statement is incorrect
reduction in USC after an imposed increase?
, Unemployment rate down to 8.9% from over 15%, No, unemployemt is at 25% according to IMF
employment rate 1.9 million and growing. See above
Irish Water now have real time map of water incidents over the whole country, Wow, IW have a map of water incidents. They have also spent over 1 billion euro and not managed to fix a single leak with this money. But they spent a lot of money on 120 Audi A6 for managers!
Your IMF reference may be a few years out of date.
Here’s the review from earlier this year:
http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2015/06/22615-imf-review-of-ireland-part-1.html
“”Ireland’s strong economic recovery is continuing in 2015, following robust growth of 4.8 percent in 2014. A range of high frequency indicators point to an extension of the solid recovery momentum into 2015, with growth increasingly driven by domestic demand as well as exports. Job creation continued with employment growth of 2.2 percent year-on-year in the first quarter of 2015, bringing the unemployment rate down to 9.8 percent in May.””
If Irish water have not fixed anything, how come bil water notices are being lifted?
http://www.water.ie/news/boil-water-notices-lifted/
“Boil Water Notices to be lifted for 22,700 in Co. Roscommon in 2015 through a prioritised programme of work and a total investment by Irish Water of €26.8m. Some customers in these areas have had to boil water for drinking since 2009. “
I absolutely understand the anger at the state of the country. Even if there was a full employment & houses for all in the morning, too many people will still be left scarred for a lifetime as a result of the worst economic disaster that this country has faced.
No matter who was in power, it was going to be crap.
2 bllion was allocated to social housing last year. But to obtain sites, planning permission, finalise contracts and obtain necessary skilled labour will still take time 18 months – 2 years to see the results of that. In the meantime we have a hideous housing crisis coupled with a growing population.
Half of homeless people are single. Huge numbers of single people looking for a place of their own. Big Student rental market needs to be satisfied.
People who previously would have been in bedsits are on the streets.
There is a need for affordable places for people. A well developed project should have a good mix of sizes to suit multiple household sizes. Single people tend to be at the bottom of the list. Poor single people even more so.
But we do need to make sure that the self-certification fire checks are gone. No more Priory Halls.
This legislation is not being put through to help homeless people or students, seriously, the only ones that will benefit from lower housing standards are property developers. Asking for a well developed mixed size development will be almost impossible now as there are no more spatial standards for quality.
A €270,000 mortgage in Germany over 25 years costs €835 a month, fixed for the entire mortgage term. Now that’s what I call affordable.
This sham of a government wants to make bankers and developers as wealthy as possible by screwing over the middle classes. Alan Kelly is nothing more than an uneducated jumped up little tosser whom I hope to meet in person some day so I can articulate my annoyance with him in the traveller tradition.
okedoke.
My parent’s mortgage was fixed for the full term too.
And they do that in the U.S. as well.
Done away it by the banks a long time ago here, as they want to gouge people for life.
They don’t want to keep the interest rates close to the ECB rate anymore – tracker mortgages, and they charge well above the ECB rate for standard variable.
Baldy won’t do anything about it though.
If you’re a traveller, we’re cool. If you aren’t. you’ll have a hard time stripping the copper off Alan Kelly.
Saint Paul admires you
“Half of homeless people are single. Huge numbers of single people looking for a place of their own. ”
Homelessness shouldn’t be dealt with by the private sector.
Here you go. Couldn’t have put it better.
http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/gene-kerrigan/gene-kerrigan-see-its-all-yer-man-mcverrys-fault-31487998.html
et, politicians make a fetish of the sacred workings of the blessed free market. The great majority of the dwellings to be built under the Government’s plans for social housing will be left to the gambling instincts of the bankers and builders.
In short, the project will not be about putting roofs over heads – except as a by-product. The primary aim of the builders will be to do whatever is necessary to squeeze as much profit out of the thing as possible.
That’s their function in life. Most of them don’t pretend otherwise.
In this country (for I am back home), ‘minimum’ standards are generally seen as goals to just about get away with. This will end up lowering the standards for everyone.
Saint Paul says it can be the same all over the world even in your adopted country too, witness the recent Berkeley case.
“But there can be little doubt that apartment design is to be dumbed-down, in the interests of the marketplace.”
Oh look, interfering with the morket… But not for the little peoples’ benefit.
Where’s all the commenters with the mantra , ‘we can’t be interfering in the marketplace’ when there’s talk of rent controls?
are they brothers?
Such a pro; vocation seemingly…
Heeeeeeeyyyyyyyyyyyyyy…Macarena!
A favoured dunce routine?