Garden cabin plans need to be rethought, says opposition TD

The Government needs to rethink the proposed exemptions to planning laws for garden cabins, the Labour Party has said.

On Thursday, the party’s Limerick City TD Conor Sheehan said it could lead to elder abuse and students living in garden sheds.

Since last February, the Government has proposed planning exemptions for back garden modular units of up to 45 square metres in size.

It is expected the new rules would require 25 square metres of the garden to be left free and would require side access to the property.

On Wednesday, the Tanaiste Simon Harris said he believed it made sense to bring such dwellings under the Rent-a-Room Relief scheme, which allows someone to rent a room in their home and earn up to 14,000 euros tax free.

The proposals were also discussed at the Government leaders’ meeting on Wednesday morning.

The Labour Party’s spokesman on housing said the Government’s plan was “supposed to come through Cabinet this week, and then it didn’t.

“So my thinking here is maybe there might be some aspect of a rethink here.

“I think there needs to be a rethink.”

Speaking to reporters outside Leinster House, Mr Sheehan said he agreed there needs to be “more flexibility around exempted development” but said he did not think landlords should be allowed to rent them.

He added: “I’m concerned that by allowing landlords to rent out these modular units, you’re effectively opening the floodgates to rack and stack substandard accommodation.”

Mr Sheehan said he believed the group most affected by this would be students: “There is a target in the new student accommodation strategy to increase the number of rental rooms for students to 4,000 a year.

“We know that the Rent-a-Room scheme has had some uptake, but it’s sort of plateaued at a certain level.

“My concern is that Government are going to effectively use garden sheds in order to reach the target in the student accommodation strategy.”

He also said there needs to be restrictions to make sure “it doesn’t potentially open the door to elder abuse”.

He added it could lead to a situation: “Whereby you have an older person, or you have an older couple, who may feel they are almost being forced to live in a modular unit in order to free up the primary residence.”

The Government has said the aim of the plans was to free up planners to work on bigger, more urgent infrastructure projects.

Mr Sheehan acknowledged planners need to be made available for other roles but warned water, sewage and grid infrastructure could be “overwhelmed” by an “influx” of units when the “dwellings that they are being put into were not actually designed for that purpose”.

Dr Sean O’Leary of the Irish Planning Institute, said that while planning exemptions for such dwellings “could address some bottlenecks” faced by planners, they are “not the bulk of what planners are doing”.

Mr O’Leary said the amount of planners freed up due to exempting back garden homes would be “quite limited”.

The measure is due to go to Cabinet for approval in the coming weeks as the details are finalised, but questions about them have been raised by ministers and the attorney general also had observations.