Shared living in Rathmines, pitched as part of solution to housing crisis, is being used as hotel for tourists

On Friday morning, a couple paused on the footpath on Ardee Road in Rathmines as they checked a phone for directions.

They’re French tourists, said Axel Mottin, booked for six nights into one of the 98 studios in the Niche Living complex behind them. “We booked on Booking.”

In July 2019, when Bartra Property (Rathmines) Limited applied for planning permission for the shared-living complex, it argued how this new typology would help provide more affordable housing for a cohort of city dwellers.

Residents would generally be there for between two and 12 months, its application said. The Niche Living website says residents can book from two weeks.

But the rooms in the recently opened block are bookable for much shorter stays on Booking.com, with tens of reviews from tourists.

Some of those coming out of the doors on Friday, like Mottin, said they were there for just a few days.

Short-term letting is defined in 2019 legislation as letting a home for less than 14 days, said a spokesperson for Dublin City Council. That activity in a shared-living complex would require planning permission, they said.

“Our records indicate that planning permission has not been granted,” said the spokesperson. “A planning enforcement file will be opened and investigations will be carried out to ascertain whether there is any breach of the short term letting regulations.”

Ciarán McGahon of the Rathmines Initiative, a community group working to improve quality of life in Rathmines, said they believe using the shared-living complex for tourists would be a breach of its planning permission.

Developers lobbying for the model “might have conceded that the accommodation might not be ideal, but at least there was a sector in the market – young people starting out in independent living, etc – which would benefit from it,” said McGahon.

Now, it seems, there’s an unacceptable situation with the building not even being used for just that, he said, “but being used instead for the even more profitable short-term let market.”

Bartra hasn’t responded to queries sent by email on Friday, including whether it felt it needed planning permission to do short-term lets at the Rathmines complex, and why it was doing it.

What was promised

Real estate developer Bartra was a frontrunner in pursuing shared living in Ireland.

The model of communal living, with small rooms and shared amenities, was codified in planning guidelines issued by Fine Gael Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy in March 2018.

While critics called the model a decline in rental standards, Murphy defended it at one point as like a “very trendy, kind of, boutique hotel”.

The model was dropped in December 2020. Fianna Fáil Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien banned new planning applications, citing among other issues, the high number of proposals and concerns about inflation of land prices with knock-on impacts on the viability of affordable housing projects.

Those already approved could go ahead and applications in the system could work their way through.

Bartra has one Niche Living complex in Dún Laoghaire too, which is also bookable for short stays on Booking.com,  and another in Ballsbridge due to open early next year.

An Bord Pleanála granted permission for another complex in Blanchardstown, on the site of the old Brady’s pub, but that was quashed in the High Court. In May this year, Bartra put in a planning application for 56 apartments there.

Bartra pitched its projects in planning applications as perfect for footloose young urbanites in search of readymade community – and necessary to address acute housing shortage and affordability challenges.

The architectural design statement for Bartra’s planning application for the Rathmines block in July 2019 said that the proposed development “could make a significant contribution to the housing crisis and provide an option for single people predominantly in their twenties or thirties who are otherwise being priced out of both the rental and purchase residential markets”.

The operation plan said that shared living is for, among others, “recent and postgraduates, workers in Ireland for short-term, those saving for deposit with a view to purchasing accommodation, seasonal accommodation and relationship breakdown”.

It put forward figures saying shared accommodation would be cheaper than build-to-rent apartments, and so would help to address affordability challenges.

It estimated that monthly rents for a development on an unnamed same-size site – 0.193 acres – in the Dublin City Council area would be €1,300 a month.

But it costs €1,990 a month to stay in the Rathmines complex, according to the Niche Living website. That website offers options to book a stay lasting from two weeks up to 12 months.

And, over on Booking.com, tourists and visitors can book for much shorter stays at a much higher rate – with a “getaway deal” in August of €259 for two nights, and standard rates hovering from €340 to €358 for two nights in October.

Outside the block on Friday, Mottin said that he and his friend had paid about €800 for the six nights.

A manager had mentioned to them that the building was usually for longer stays, he said. He had met others staying for a bit longer – one woman was there for 16 days, he said.

One questionable thing for him about the room design is the door with darkened glass to the toilet cubicle, he said. You can see through it, which is awkward with two sharing a studio, said Mottin.

Mostly, the online reviews are really positive though, with one tourist calling it, “the best hotel I have ever stayed”. Although a downside, a few short-term guests said in reviews, is that the rooms are “very small”.

McGahon, of the Rathmines Initiative, said that “One of the objections to this scheme is that this kind of accommodation with its severely limited spatial standards and facilities falls very much short of what people really need.”

“The fact that the building was permitted by An Bord Pleanála was influenced by recent and short-sighted government policies responding to the chronic housing shortage,” he said in an email.

“It appears to the Rathmines Initiative that this situation is a clear and predictable result of the shortcomings in the current model of developer-led provision for the housing market,” he said.

McGahon says his group planned to contact Dublin City Council and councillors to flag what seems to be a breach of the planning permission.

“And requesting that action be taken to oblige the developers to comply with the planning permission granted by An Bord Pleanála,” he said.