Beds in sheds - who will regulate building compliance?
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What do the new Exempted Development rules allow homeowners to build in their gardens?
Buying or building a modular home in your own back garden has recently been made easier for homeowners following the introduction of the Exempted Development Bill. Announcing the new measures, Minister for State at the Department of Housing, John Cummins, said homeowners would benefit from updated practical planning exemptions allowing people to build detached garden homes, subdivide properties and expand extensions without needing formal planning permission. However, questions have arisen about whether enough information has been provided to the public about how to go about navigating the new rules, because while planning exemptions now apply, building regulations must be followed. For more on this, I'm joined in studio by Orla Hegarty, architect and assistant professor in UCD, and Gavin Lawler, president of the Irish Planning Institute.
Thank you both very much for coming in this morning. Orla, can I start with you? Do you have concerns about what might happen to the standard, the quality of these buildings, the safety of these buildings?
I do. I have concerns for people, I suppose, entering into this as if they're buying a used car instead of entering into a construction project. And what I mean by that is they're not just buying something that will be delivered and dropped into their garden. They're actually becoming the homeowner in a process of construction, which has other rules. So it has rules about compliance with building regulations and safety, all of which have to be compliant with. There's no exemption on that. And there's also rules about health and safety in construction sites. And the responsibility for both of those areas falls back on the homeowner. And they're both subject to criminal prosecution if they don't comply with them.
And we haven't seen any information issued to people to help them through that process.
Give me specific examples of the kind of safety concerns that arise for you.
Well, specific examples. For example, if somebody is going to have a couple of contractors on site, maybe one digging drains and putting in a foundation and another one coming in later and craning it in, the responsibility for putting in place health and safety appointments to make sure that process is done safely is on the homeowner. Making them a project manager. Effectively, putting them in a position of ensuring they employ competent people and that the competent people have access in advance looked at the risks of this. Obviously, if you're craning something over your neighbour's property and over the public street, you can see where there's risks. But there's also risks later in the process.
How do planning exemptions interact with mandatory building regulations and safety laws?
So the planning rules say you can't build up to your boundary, that you have to stay back 60 centimetres from your boundary. Now, that's just too narrow in terms of building regulations.
Why?
Under building regulations, you have to, if you're that close to a boundary, you can't have windows in it. Now, the planning exemption says you can have windows 60 centimetres from the boundary, which is really narrow. It's only the width of a
But what's your problem with the 60cm?
The problem with that is the planning exemption doesn't make clear to people that some of the things it's suggesting can't work under building control. So you can't have any fire rated construction that closed, combustible construction that closed to a boundary. And we can see that a lot of the units that are being sold to people
Okay, is this because your neighbour is quite likely to have an oil tank on the other side of that little fence?
It can be an oil tank, it can be their extension, but you have to be very careful close to boundaries in terms of fire rated construction. And that includes not having windows that open where fire can spread out through the windows, for example.
There are a lot of companies that are selling themselves as a one-stop shop. So they would presumably bring that project managing expertise with them to a project like this and be able to ensure worker safety and be able to ensure common sense compliance with not building the bedroom of your Shomra right next to somebody else's kerosene tank.
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What do the new Exempted Development rules allow homeowners to build in their gardens?
0:00–2:16
2
How do planning exemptions interact with mandatory building regulations and safety laws?
2:16–8:03
3
What specific health and safety responsibilities fall on homeowners when installing modular garden homes?
8:03–10:47
4
Why is a 60 centimetre distance to the boundary controversial for windows and fire safety?
10:47–13:11