One-off housing
One-off housing is a term used to refer to the building of individual rural houses, outside of towns and villages. The term is used to contrast with housing developments where multiple units are constructed as part of a housing estate or city street. Less commonly, the term is used to refer to infill housing in suburban areas.
Characteristics
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One-off houses exist in many forms and the builder has autonomy over what design features to incorporate, in contrast to the uniform characteristics often found in more mass-produced forms of housing such as tract housing, prefabricated housing, and apartment buildings. Nevertheless one-off construction does not guarantee any architectural merit or uniqueness as plans are readily available off the shelf.
Provision of services
In remote areas provision of services to one-off houses using public utilities can be prohibitively expensive or simply unavailable and an alternative will need to be arranged
Sewerage
Electricity
Communication
Water
Prevalence
Ireland
Government officials stated at a planning conference in 2001 that 36% of dwellings built in 2000 in Ireland were one-off houses.[1] Recent years have seen a huge increase in the supply of all types of housing in Ireland with 547,000 houses, equivalent to a third of the total national housing stock, built in the period 1996–2006[2]
Debate
The debate centres around the presumed rights of Irish people to live where and how they like versus the presumed obligation of the Irish state to curtail development patterns that it considers detrimental to society as a whole. There is a spectrum of opinion ranging from those who would oppose or allow all isolated rural development to those who would allow for isolated rural development in various circumstances.
Right to build on one's own land
There are two versions of this argument: that people should have the right to either build on land they own or else that people should have the right to build a house near to where their families live.
"Surely, if the culture of rural areas is to be preserved, then people from the countryside should not be routinely denied the opportunity to build a family home in their place of origin."
Traditional land use patterns
Dr Séamus Caulfield, retired professor of archaeology at University College Dublin, has stated that Irish Stone Age rural settlements were dispersed throughout the countryside but that in recent years planners were using British Anglo-Saxon planning models that emphasise "settlement in urban areas – nucleation settlements".[4]
Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, has supported the view that one-off housing is a continuation of the traditional land use patterns in Ireland for millennia.
"We have a dispersed pattern of settlement going back thousands of years."[5]
In contrast, An Tasice has argued[6] that early settlements were nucleated and communal, often surrounded by ringforts for protection. It also argues that the environmental effects of one-off housing in the Stone Age were different from those observed in a car-dependent modern lifestyle.
Rural depopulation
It is argued by Dick Roche that
"The most important ingredient in rural development is population." [5]
The implication of this argument is that permitting one-off housing sustains rural populations by making it economically feasible for people to live in rural areas.
There are two counter-arguments: that one-off housing draws people out of rural towns and villages, stifling the growth of these regions,[7] or else that population growth is not desirable in 'ultra-rural' areas that ought rather to become natural recreational areas with land-owners employed in land-maintenance, forestry and tourism-related services.[8]
Appeal to motive arguments
Opponents of one-off housing sometimes claim the motivation for this type of development is financial. Their argument is that due to the presumed Irish property bubble, it has become far cheaper to build rather than buy a house in Ireland and that one-off housing regulations allow for the conversion of inexpensive agricultural land into plots often worth more than €150,000 per site. They argue that farmers have become reliant on housing as a cash crop,[9] while one-off builders are motivated by the capital gains they expect to make on their property.
By contrast, advocates of one-off housing may characterise those who would limit this type of development as Dublin 4 urbanites[10] motivated by a desire to maintain the hegemony of cities and put country people in their place.[3] Opponents of one-off housing are sometimes compared to colonial British landlords from the era before Irish independence.
"There could have been 40 houses on one road in my area – and, of course, the British landlords evicted them. Now unfortunate people are trying to get planning permission in those areas today but there is a new British landlord, An Taisce, objecting to them. "
- Johnny Brady TD, Chairman of the Joint Committee on Agriculture and Food[10]
Proponents and opponents
One-off housing development is broadly supported by the former Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dick Roche, and by the Minister for Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, Éamon Ó Cuív.[11] In 2005, the Irish government (a coalition between Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats) introduced policy guidelines that detailed the circumstances under which one-off housing should be promoted.[12] These guidelines were supported by Sinn Féin and Fine Gael (the largest opposition party).[13]
The Irish Farmers Association and the Irish Rural Dwellers Association also promote one-off housing.[14][15]
An Taisce, an Irish conservation organisation, maintains a policy against the proliferation of one-off housing development.[16] Frank McDonald, a journalist with The Irish Times coined the term 'Bungalow Blitz' in a series of articles condemning one-off housing in the 1980s. This was a pun on the title of a popular book named 'Bungalow Bliss' by Jack Fitzsimons, that contained architectural plans for bungalows intended to be used by those building their own homes.[17] The Irish Green Party opposes the proliferation of one-off housing development.[18]
The Stop Bungalow Chaos[19] Campaign Group also actively lobbies against the current status quo policies favouring the proliferation of one-off housing in Ireland.
Circumstances under which one-off housing may be encouraged
Local authorities often allow one-off developments where they meet some of the following criteria:
- The applicant intends to farm the surrounding land
- The applicant's parents own the land in question and are farmers
- The applicant commits not to sell the house for a number of years
- The applicant was born in the local area
- The local area is suffering from depopulation
- The applicant intends to work in the local area and not use the house as a base to commute to a city.
According to Minister Éamon Ó Cuív, 80% of applications for one-off housing in Ireland are approved.[3]
See also
References
- Irish Times article, 26 April 2001
- 10th Anniversary Edition of the permanent tsb/ ESRI House Price Index
- Speech by Minister Éamon Ó Cuív to a conference of IRDA
- One-off housing key for rural living, meeting told, Irish Times, 22 February 2003 (subscription)
- Seanad Debate on Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines, 28 April, 2005
- An Taisce challenges expert on rural plans, Irish Times, 29 April 2002 (subscription)
- It's all about quality of life, stupid!
- An alternative vision of Ireland in contrast with the current spatial development mantra, Constantin Gurdgiev
- FKL architects: SubUrban to SuperRural, Venice Architecture Biennale
- Debate of the joint Committee on Agriculture and Food, 23 September 2003
- Pros and Cons of One-Off Housing, The Sunday Business Post, 24 August 2003
- Sustainable Rural Housing Guidelines for Planning Authorities (PDF)
- Fine Gael reaction to Guidelines on Rural Housing 2004
- IFA newsletter, spring 2006, mentioning support for the Government's new rural planning guidelines
- Irish Rural Dwellers Association Website
- An Taisce policy on one-off housing (Word document)
- Bungalow Blitz: The House that Jack Built
- Ciarán Cuffe, Irish Green Party TD, responding to one-off housing guidelines