Seomraí: a response to the critics

Last week's announcement that the government is considering exempting seomraí from planning permission has caused a lively discussion. The announcement signalled an intention to allow small detached homes to be built on existing plots to the rear of the main house. But given the space and time constraints of media discussions, a lot of good points have been left undeveloped and a lot of bad points have been left unanswered. I thought I would respond, one by one, to some common objections that have appeared in the media this past week.

Before getting into the objections, it is worth noting how overwhelmingly positive the response has been. As Joe Duffy, the host of Liveline, said: “The sooner [this policy is implemented] the better, according to most of our listeners.” The Tonight Show’s Gavan Reilly made a similar point on air. And the Irish Times Editorial board came out in favour of the idea.

It is no surprise the idea is so popular. It reflects a broad coalition of interests: older people looking for flexible housing options, younger people facing the choice of living with their parents or emigrating, homeowners looking for some extra income, and renters seeking more options in their communities.

Let’s get into the objections.

“What if they are rented?”

There has been ambiguity around whether the proposal will allow seomraí to be rented. It seems quite obvious to some people that this is the plan and they are responding on that basis, both in favour and against. However, to be clear, the government has not made a decision on this yet.

I believe we should allow seomraí to be rented. The arguments for allowing this are quite simple: we need more homes, especially small units near jobs, and this policy promises to deliver some homes where they are needed. You can find more detailed arguments in this article from September of last year.

Allowing seomraí to be rented will allow for greater flexibility. A seomra that began as a means to provide accommodation to a family member can later be used to generate additional income. This is a win-win. Renters will see more options and homeowners will be able to generate some help with the cost of living.

But like with any form of renting – from having lodgers to renting out the whole house – there will be challenges. But these challenges should be weighed up with the status quo. If you’re worried about the size of these units, the relevant comparison is not a world of limitless 90 square metre southwardly facing A2 rated apartments. Rather, for a lot of people, the alternative options are crammed sharehouses, living in your childhood bedroom, living in a mobile home or caravan, or emigrating.

“Beds in sheds”

The first objection centres on a phrase that I have seen used by both proponents and opponents of the idea. It has spread, presumably, because it makes for a good headline or hook. But it is nevertheless misleading.

The phrase is “beds in sheds.”

The concrete objection behind some uses of this phrase is about quality. There is an understandable concern that seomraí will be of poor quality, cold, temporary, and potentially dangerous structures.

But like with any other new dwelling, seomraí will be subject to the building regulations, conditions on the exemption itself, and any extant laws and policies related to building quality.

Take energy ratings. Since 2019, all new residential construction has been mandated to achieve an A2 rating. This would include seomraí. They would therefore be warm, relatively inexpensive to heat, and quiet.

With an A2 rating, seomraí would stand out as some of the highest quality rental units in the country. The ESRI has found that 80 per cent of rental dwellings in Ireland have a BER rating below B. The majority of these are D (24 per cent) or C (38 per cent) rated. Seomraí would be warmer, quieter, and cheaper to heat than most of the homes behind which they are built.

Equating Ireland’s high standards with sheds creates a misleading image of low quality. No, the proposal is not to allow ‘beds in sheds,’ rather it is for the government to remove a de facto ban on families providing accommodation on their own property.

“A race to the bottom”

Of course, many of those who use the ‘beds in sheds’ pejorative are not suggesting that the laws and policies are themselves inadequate. The regulations are fine, so the objection goes, but these rules will be broken. In fact, so many people will break the rules that it could be described as a “race to the bottom.”

Often this objection is used, not as a prelude to positive suggestions as to how to enforce the rules, but as a reason to reject the policy altogether.

Better enforcement is the answer to concerns of potential rule-breaking. One way in which enforcement can be baked into the policy is to require all seomraí to fill out a simple registration. Planning exemptions come with requirements and requiring a simple registration of all seomraí would enable local authorities to see what is being built and where.

Of course, like with any other rule, some will break it. Any aerial photo of Ireland’s suburbs will show rule breaking already occurs. This proposal will bring all future seomraí into view of local authorities, allowing them the data resources to apply their rules meaningfully. Any seomraí which is not registered will be, as a consequence, in breach of the rules just as much as similar structures are now.

At the margin, then, this is a step toward greater transparency and ultimately greater quality. If you care about quality, you should support this policy.

That said, we shouldn’t overstate people’s appetite to break the rules. People will have every incentive to comply with the regulations on seomraí. In fact, this policy move will give homeowners an incentive to provide high-quality homes that didn’t exist before.

In the past, people have built substandard structures in response to the immense housing stress they and their loved ones are under. The difference between building a high and a substandard dwelling, from the point of view of the current rules, is just cost. Both are effectively illegal. There is an incentive then to keep the costs down since you may be forced to take the whole thing down. The status quo policy presents little incentive to improve the quality of the dwellings (other than the direct benefits of having a nicer dwelling).

That calculus changes with this policy. Bringing seomraí in from the cold changes the incentives of homeowners. The difference between a high-quality unit and a substandard one is now more than a difference in upfront costs. Rather, with this change, that difference is everything. Complying with or failing to adhere to the building regulations, energy directives, and other standards will make a big difference to the riskiness of building. Homeowners will have very strong reasons to provide compliant dwellings since, if they don’t, they risk losing all of their investment and tearing it down. Again, if you care about quality and promoting high quality units, this policy will encourage high standards and provide an in-built deterrent against substandard units.

“We will never be able to enforce the rules”

Homeowners may have a strong reason to provide high-quality homes but what about those that don’t? Some commentators have claimed that local authorities have neither the resources nor the capabilities to enforce the standards. According to them, it doesn’t matter what the rules are, this will be a “free-for-all.”

Local planning departments are, to be clear, overworked and stretched thin. Not only are planners tasked with master planning, they must also take on the role of assessing each planning application that comes into the council and enforcing the rules against those who flout them. They are at once planners and enforcers.

But the solution to an overstretched department is not to reject additional housing on the basis that we cannot enforce the rules. It would be the wrong lesson to take from, for instance, the defective block scandal, that we should stop building homes altogether. Rather, one major lesson is to improve the state’s capacity to enforce its rules.

But it needn’t be that difficult to achieve that capacity. Rental supply is so low in towns around Ireland, that a full and comprehensive review in a given town would not take long. For example, right now in Waterford there are only five one-bedroom apartments listed for rent. These five apartments could be checked for compliance by one person rather quickly.

Ensuring all new seomraí are registered would allow local authorities to see where each new dwelling was. A simple cross-reference with websites like DAFT would ensure that all units listed for rent were fully registered. Those that were not could then be dealt with through the normal procedures.

All of this is to say that the challenge of enforcement is real. But commentators and the State should not respond to the challenge by insisting that the simple enforcement of rules is beyond the capability of modern states.

“Unforeseen problems”

This is perhaps the weakest objection of them all. The strongest version of it may go as follows: Look, there are all kinds of things that can happen when you change a law or regulation. According to this objection, we’re not being cautious enough.

There are two responses to this point.

The first is that the government is proceeding cautiously. Too cautiously, if you listen to the callers on liveline.

This proposal will follow the preset timeline underpinning the implementation of the Planning and Development Act (2024). That act provides the basis for exempted regulations (replacing the act of 2000). The entire set of exempted regulations will be subject to a round of public consultation and the scrutiny of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government, and Heritage. I am not sure what part of this process is viewed as too quick or lacking caution.

The second point is that this response is often used as a poor replacement for thinking. Every policy presents challenges. These should be discussed. If problems are yet to be identified then we should seek to identify them. The claim of ‘unforeseeable consequences’ can always be used to criticise new policy ideas, but it should never be the main argument one relies on – it is vague at best and misleading at worst.

To be perfectly charitable, this objection often reflects a gut feeling that something is wrong, that we should be careful. These feelings may help guide us and they are not worth nothing. But, when we are discussing a policy which is a mainstay across Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand, it loses its power as an argument.

What about the infrastructure?

Infrastructure, in particular water infrastructure, has been highlighted as a potential concern for the proposal. The idea is that Ireland’s – but particularly Dublin’s – overstretched water and wastewater infrastructure may not be able to cope with the densities associated with seomraí.

The first thing to say is that Ireland needs to rapidly approve the Water Supply Project and complete the Greater Dublin Drainage project. The former has been held up and will, when it is completed, provide a more reliable source of water for Dublin’s growing population. We need to improve our water services if we are going to tackle the housing shortage anyway. That is why the government has announced a boost to the capital allocation to Uisce Éireann in the Programme to Government.

The second thing to say is that the majority of uses of seomraí will be within the family and will not increase the population of the area. People will be moving from the big house into the small one. This reflects the international use cases well. Matt Regan, of the Bay Area Economic Council, noted that the majority of “ADUs” – the American name for seomraí – are used for families who want to stay close to one another.

However, it should be noted that often this objection is being used as a blocking tactic. Few, if any, object to the existence of crammed houseshares on the grounds that there will be additional water use compared to a small family. Banning houseshares on the grounds that they add – as they undoubtedly do – to the strain on water services would be as unwise as continuing the de facto ban on seomraí.

What about car parking?

Many commentators have discussed the problem of car parking provision. No one wants to see streets blocked by cars parked on curbs.

The direction of policy, especially in Dublin, is moving away from car dependence. This policy should be no exception. If people park illegally, local authorities should deal with that, as they do presently. It is, once again, a question of enforcement.

No one objects to the idea of renting a room on the grounds that a lodger may not be able to own a car. Similarly, we shouldn’t restrict seomraí on the grounds that such renters may not be able to own a car.

What about neighbours?

Concerns of local residents and communities should be taken seriously. They do not want to lose light in their garden or lose privacy.

The exempted regulations should be drafted in such a way as to ensure the impact on neighbours is minimal.

Minister John Cummins got off to a good start on this front by suggesting the maximum size to be exempted will be about 40 square metres. At present, homeowners can extend their property up to 40 square metres without planning permission.

The only difference with this new policy will be that where before homeowners could add additional floor space, now homeowners will be able to provide additional homes. These will be detached but will be subject to similar rules.

The current rules already allow for detached structures, such as gyms, home offices, or sheds up to 25 square metres. While these detached structures will be allowed to be bigger under this proposal, rules enforcing height limits and separation distances will ensure minimal impact on neighbouring amenity.

We shouldn’t overstate the material difference for neighbours being proposed here. From their point of view, this new proposal shouldn’t feel too different. They will be as protected as they are now. Detached structures will be allowed to be bigger but detached structures are not a new phenomenon. The difference will be what is inside these structures. But that someone may sleep in a structure won’t materially alter the amenity of neighbouring properties.

What about people’s gardens?

One 2020 report from Dublin City Council suggested a concern, not just for neighbours, but for the homeowners themselves. Were they to build a seomra, they would be losing out on garden space. So too would any future owner of the property. As a result, the report concludes (among other points), we shouldn’t allow people to build these structures.

This may sound odd but this style of reasoning appears surprisingly often in public policy discussions. It usually follows a common structure of “protecting” people from their own decisions. Of course, many reasonable rules do just this. But this is certainly an extreme case: we are protecting people from their choice of how to use their own garden.

Put most charitably, the concern may be that, if everyone paves over their garden and builds a seomra, nobody gets a garden. And this, other things being equal, is bad.

Ultimately, like with existing exemptions, a balance must be struck between retaining gardens and allowing for the delivery of homes. The current rules mandate that minimally 25 square metres of garden space be left over after an extension is built. This rule could be retained.

But the preferences of ordinary people should not be ignored nor should the preferences of planning authorities get priority. One caller to Liveline put it powerfully when she said: “My garden is my solitude. But I would give up every blade of grass in my garden if it meant my children didn’t have to emigrate.”

“This is a distraction, what we really should be doing is…”

Finally, this objection is about priorities. It says that while this idea makes sense, it is too insignificant to make a dent, and the government should be focussing its finite energy on other, bigger, ideas.

It is undeniable that this idea may seem small when compared with, for instance, removing the cap on Dublin. It is also undeniable that governments have finite resources and should focus on the ideas with the biggest impact.

That said, we shouldn’t understate the potential of this idea. Our analysis suggests there are approximately 350,000 properties nationwide that may be suitable for these proposed changes. In Dublin, around 160,000 properties – roughly 29% – meet our criteria related to garden size, access, and sufficient rental returns to justify the investment. Abroad, similar policies have caused significant increases to the levels of supply.

These figures do not imply that hundreds of thousands of new homes will be built overnight. However, they do indicate that factors like access, garden size, and economic incentives are not going to limit the potential of the policy. Of course, it may not be suitable for everyone – but it does not need to be in order to provide meaningful options to those who need them most.

The search for a single silver-bullet to solve the housing shortage is mistaken. The government is right to look at the potential of using an exemption to ease housing pressure for families across the country. But it should be one node in a broader plan.

An excellent model is that of New Zealand. The New Zealand coalition government calls their plan Going for Housing Growth. Members of the government call their strategy the “And, And, And” approach. They recognise that there is no silver-bullet; their goal is to layer solutions on top of each other, addressing each corner of their housing system. In Ireland, yes the government should be looking at getting construction costs down and scaling up land availability. Yes, it should be speeding up the planning system. And yes, it should be exempting seomraí. As the Kiwis say: And, And, And.