Council’s warning on modular homes

A VIEW existed among some people that it is now lawful to erect a modular home without planning permission, but that was a myth that had to be debunked, Cllr Michael O’ Meara stated at the April meeting of the Nenagh Municipal District Authority.

He said many young local couples wanted to put modular homes in the back gardens of their parents’ homes. But to do so they still needed to get planning permission from Tipperary County Council.

Cllr O’ Meara said many young people felt frustrated having to live with their parents because they could not afford a home of their own.

Like so many of their contemporaries that had already done so, they were thinking of emigrating to Australia. But sadly, they were going to be faced with similar problems there as Australia also had a housing crisis.

Cllr O’ Meara said the reality in Ireland now was that young people looking at building a “bog-standard home” would need to be able to afford to fork out €500,000.

Speaking after hearing four local auctioneers giving their views of the housing crisis on Tipp FM, Cllr O’ Meara said what he learned from listening to them was that the Government does not “have a hope in hell” of building a target of 40,000 to 50,000 homes a year.

“They [the Government] are not living in the real world because the builders are not there to build this number of houses,” declared Cllr O’ Meara.

He said it would now cost a young couple €500,000 to build a house of 2,500 square feet in North Tipperary. “No bank is going to give out a young couple that kind of money and no couple is going to be able to afford such a mortgage.”

Cllr O’ Meara said the Government was “living in Cloud Cuckoo Land” if it thought it was going to build over 40,000 houses a year.

He said there were now large numbers of young couples returning to live in rural areas of north Tipperary. One message he wanted to get across to them was that if they were thinking of building, then the county council would be receptive when it came to seeking planning permission.

HIGH GRANT RATE

The council’s executive planner Jonathan Flood said the council had a planning application grant rate of 96 per cent last year. “So, we have very few refusals,” he added.

Up to the end of March this year 94 per cent of applications were granted by the council in the Nenagh Municipal District.

Mr Flood said the council was faced with constraints in granting permissions in areas where there was existing ribbon development and where there were poor wastewater treatment facilities. But he added that the council was open to do everything it could to iron out any difficulties that applicants might face when building a home.

If applicants engaged with the council at the pre-planning stages, then planners worked to put them on the right path.

CAUTION ON MODULARS

Mr Flood said a misconception existed that people could build a modular home of 25 square metres in the back garden of their parents home without having to get planning permission. However, this was not the case, and permission was required for such structures.

He urged people to exercise caution if purchasing modular homes. A message was being put out there from certain quarters that no planning permission was required to put such homes on a site, but this was incorrect.

While the Government says it is moving to ease restrictions on putting modular homes in back gardens, Mr Flood said he expected it would be later this year before local authorities had sight of the new legislation governing such structures.