New affordable houses and not a garden in sight.

seahorse

I haven’t had much experience of affordable housing in that I've never been in one and I've never had a good look at them from the outside before (or at least if I have I wasn’t aware that I was looking at an affordable housing development), but this new development of affordable housing has been built near where I live, in a suburb of north county Dublin, and I just cant get over the way they've planned these houses. They're all houses, no apartments, so I suppose that's a plus, but the thing is, between the fifty-five or so houses, there isn’t a single garden!!!

I've been considering putting my name on the affordable housing list, but these houses would make me think twice. I don’t know; they're in a decent area so of course that's important, it's just the way they've been planned, it's unreal. They all have a car space as far as I can make out (the place is still under construction, almost completed) but as I said there isn’t a single garden in this development. Of course with affordable housing you're not expecting a semi-D with large back and front gardens, but at least I would have expected to see a small little back or front garden, you know, just a little bit of private outside space; even a bloody patio for a table and chairs to sit out in the sun - I mean you'd expect there to be something.

Beside the car space there is a little tiny strip of grass running between the car space and the side of the house, about six foot long and 2.5 ft wide; you seriously wouldnt fit a washing line on it, and I mean seriously. There’s no way anybody in their sane mind could call that a garden. You wouldn’t fit a dog kennel for a chihuahua on it.

When you go out the doors of these homes you're immediately on communal ground. I guess it's all about making the most of the space, and since the aim was frugality they’ve certainly done a very good job of it! I'm just wondering is this the usual case with affordable homes? Does anybody know can you often expect not to have even the smallest sort of outdoor private space, or is this unique to this development?

godtabh

seahorse wrote:

I haven’t had much experience of affordable housing in that I've never been in one and I've never had a good look at them from the outside before (or at least if I have I wasn’t aware that I was looking at an affordable housing development), but this new development of affordable housing has been built near where I live, in a suburb of north county Dublin, and I just cant get over the way they've planned these houses. They're all houses, no apartments, so I suppose that's a plus, but the thing is, between the fifty-five or so houses, there isn’t a single garden!!!

I've been considering putting my name on the affordable housing list, but these houses would make me think twice. I don’t know; they're in a decent area so of course that's important, it's just the way they've been planned, it's unreal. They all have a car space as far as I can make out (the place is still under construction, almost completed) but as I said there isn’t a single garden in this development. Of course with affordable housing you're not expecting a semi-D with large back and front gardens, but at least I would have expected to see a small little back or front garden, you know, just a little bit of private outside space; even a bloody patio for a table and chairs to sit out in the sun - I mean you'd expect there to be something.

Beside the car space there is a little tiny strip of grass running between the car space and the side of the house, about six foot long and 2.5 ft wide; you seriously wouldnt fit a washing line on it, and I mean seriously. There’s no way anybody in their sane mind could call that a garden. You wouldn’t fit a dog kennel for a chihuahua on it.

When you go out the doors of these homes you're immediately on communal ground. I guess it's all about making the most of the space, and since the aim was frugality they’ve certainly done a very good job of it! I'm just wondering is this the usual case with affordable homes? Does anybody know can you often expect not to have even the smallest sort of outdoor private space, or is this unique to this development?

Its been done before. The one place i can think of is the one opposite Belrgove Park on the Old Lucan Road in Chapelizod.

BC

This issue isn't specific to affordable housing. Its irrelevant that theres affordable housing available there - its just poor design and poor planning.

seahorse

BC wrote:

This issue isn't specific to affordable housing. Its irrelevant that theres affordable housing available there - its just poor design and poor planning.

Well, I can’t help thinking that if these homes were being sold on the open market it might have occurred to the developers that they'd be worth considerably less considering there is no private outdoor recreational space! Building homes with this deficiency which are being sold outside of the affordable housing scheme must be something of a rarity because I’ve never seen it.

tHE vAGGABOND

sound like duplex's [apartments with and upstairs!] more than houses tbh

seahorse

tHE vAGGABOND wrote:

sound like duplex's [apartments with and upstairs!] more than houses tbh

No, they're not duplex's tHE vAGGABOND, that I could understand (and in that case I'd still expect to see balconys) They're houses placed on communal ground, and basically that's the end of it.

I just think it's a pity they couldnt have put in a small garden to the front or rear, or even a little patio, because without that they're the sort of houses a family wouldnt be interested in making a life for themselves in with their kids. They're the sort of houses you'd just live in for a couple of years while you got the sponds together to move on, and surely that goes against the whole ethos of affordable housing; I mean, wasnt it designed to house families in the long term?

godtabh

BC wrote:

This issue isn't specific to affordable housing. Its irrelevant that theres affordable housing available there - its just poor design and poor planning.

How is it poor planning?

Building big houses with big gardens in places isn't sustainable in a place when land is at a premium.

There has to be a compromise be such as communal gardens, community centres etc

seahorse

kearnsr wrote:

How is it poor planning?

Building big houses with big gardens in places isn't sustainable in a place when land is at a premium.

Well I take your point Kearnsr, but I'm not talking about big houses with big gardens; I'm talking about small houses with small gardens.

I'd say it is poor planning as these homes need to be family friendly, and if you've got young kids and nothing outside your door other than communal concrete they're clearly not.

godtabh

seahorse wrote:

Well I take your point Kearnsr, but I'm not talking about big houses with big gardens; I'm talking about small houses with small gardens.

I'd say it is poor planning as these homes need to be family friendly, and if you've got young kids and nothing outside your door other than communal concrete they're clearly not.

It applies to houes across the board.

Would you rather have 1 family with a garden and one family in shelters or two families in two houes without a garden?

Families across the world are brought up in aparment blocks. Are the Irish to good for that?

seahorse

kearnsr wrote:

It applies to houes across the board.

Would you rather have 1 family with a garden and one family in shelters or two families in two houes without a garden?

Families across the world are brought up in aparment blocks. Are the Irish to good for that?

Your questions are interesting and I intend to answer them at length, but I'm heading out the door now, so I’ll get back to you on those.

I'd like to ask you though, for curiosities sake; have you ever raised a child?

godtabh

seahorse wrote:

I'd like to ask you though, for curiosities sake; have you ever raised a child?

No.

I'm guessing a few people in Manhattan have (assuming your argument was that if I didnt children what would I know?)

jimmycrackcorm

If they were apartments then there would be no problem. Perhaps they're some new variant of apartments.

Victor

It's quite possible there is a communal garden. Many people don't have the time or skills to keep a garden - you'll see many a place where the grass is never cut and there are huge weeds.

Look at it this way. No lawn mowers going off on Saturday morning, disturbing your lie-in.

the_syco

seahorse wrote:

the place is still under construction, almost completed

Sounds like there's still time to throw a bit of green in somewhere.

seahorse

kearnsr wrote:

No.

I'm guessing a few people in Manhattan have (assuming your argument was that if I didnt children what would I know?)

Well, I'm not going to start comparing the issue of childrearing as compared to those elsewhere on the world stage because when you bring relitivity into the equation it quicky becomes apparent that we are lucky in this country to (for the most part) have food to put in our childrens mouths, never mind gardens to play in. All I'm saying is that I have been in the situation of both raising my son in flats and in houses and, as a parent, those two situations are very distinct and the benefits of having some private outdoor space are very apparent and affect the family in the positive, and as a whole.

As to this question:

kearnsr wrote:

Would you rather have 1 family with a garden and one family in shelters or two families in two houes without a garden?

The area space required to give each house a small bit of a garden or a patio wouldnt require the ground space of an entire house, or anything close to it. I think that a forty house estate where people will be likely to want to stay and settle and raise their families is a better scenario long term than a fifty five house estate which people will treat like a stop gap on the way to the lives they really want to be living. As for the fifteen families who missed out on a house; if I was numbered among them I think I'd prefer to wait it out till I got a house I actually wanted to stay in and make a life in with my family.

As far as the Irish being "too good" for apartment living; I dont think it benefits families anywhere to live hearded together living above and below and either side of eachother in an environment where they'd need to literally stick their heads out the window for a bit of fresh air. I spent my childhood between corporation flats off Mountjoy square and Ballymun, so I'm speaking from experience when I say it's not ideal in terms of the stress it puts on families. Of course I'm not saying it's realistic to assume all of our experiences should be ideal and, like I said, when you look at global comparisons we're lucky, in this generation, not to have the sort of widespread rampant poverty that comes from famine; but the fact that our children arent starving dosent make an apartment or a garden-less house any more attractive in comparison to a home with a bit of private outdoor space.

It's no fun having to explain to a six year old that, no, he cant play outside in the street with all the other kids, and it's equally unenviable having to deal with the inevitable question; "why, when all the other kids are allowed"?, when the true answer is that you feel their parents couldnt be doing a very good job of it since they allow their kids to play on paths with broken glass on them, by the roadside with trucks flying up it and God knows what sort of perverts driving down it. I know a girl who raised her kids in an apartment block in co Kildare for the first few years of their lives before she bought her house; that was a different scenario, she was in the countryside; but raising kids in apartments in the city is a different experience, and it's a frustrating and stressful one, and I've no doubt that's true of cities across the globe.

seahorse

the_syco wrote:

Sounds like there's still time to throw a bit of green in somewhere.

No, they're just fitting the windows at this stage; the roads and the tarmac and all that is already down. I'm not saying it's the biggest scandal in the history of the world or anything; just that it really surprised me, because I cant imagine many people getting the keys and thinking to themselves; "Now I've got to the place where I want to raise my family and never leave".

Maybe I've misjudged the whole concept, but I thought affordable housing was supposed to aid families who'd been priced out of the housing market purchase a home to raise families in, rather than to provide 'starter homes' for people who intended to move on after a couple of years, and come to think of it, that cant possibly be the concept, since you've got this 20 year commitment to stay there otherwise deal with the clawback clause.

Victor

seahorse wrote:

It's no fun having to explain to a six year old that, no, he cant play outside in the street with all the other kids, and it's equally unenviable having to deal with the inevitable question; "why, when all the other kids are allowed"?, when the true answer is that you feel their parents couldnt be doing a very good job of it since they allow their kids to play on paths with broken glass on them, by the roadside with trucks flying up it and God knows what sort of perverts driving down it.

This just shows that we neglect our communal spaces. Make communal spaces everyone's responsibility and things improve.

godtabh

Ballymun was used as an example of what life was like growig up in an aparment block.

Ballymun is poor example of how apartment blocks. That place was let to run its self down and as a result ended up the way it was.

They approach they are bring now is a lot different to before hand. THe schemes I've worked on there require a lot of input from the locals in order to maintain there new homes.

Hopefully it will work.

In terms of being reared in apartments I meant the likes of people in New York, Paris and other large cities were space for houses is limited and as a resilt there is high density complexes.

Ideally all kids would be free range but other factors has meant that that even if the green space was there it wouldn't be used.

All developments are required to have a certain amount of green open space. I'm not sure what size but there are guide lines set down by each local authority in terms of local area plan. Goggle one and you'll find it.

You will generally find that the more expensive the development the i.e up market developments the more green space available. Down the other scale of things beggars cant be choosers unfortunately.

OTK

seahorse, where is the affordable development without gardens that you are talking about?

You are right that famlies need overlooked safe green pace for kids to play in.

There is not a simple choice between gardenless stacked boxes and sprawling estates. High density dvelopment can incorporate private overlooked green space, segregated from traffic. Green spaces can be semi-private/ communal. High density development can be buit without high-rise. I haven't seen family-suitable high density in Ireland yet.

When the market tanks, you'll probably lose whatever subsidy you gain by acquiring affordable housing. The layouts are poor and I think you'd be better off renting., saving and buying later when the bloodbath is in full swing.

godtabh

OTK wrote:

High density development can be buit without high-rise. I haven't seen family-suitable high density in Ireland yet.

How do you get high density with out highrise (and by high rise I mean anything over 2 stories)?

Do you understand the the concept of high density/medium density/low density?

OTK wrote:

You are right that famlies need overlooked safe green pace for kids to play in.

Green spaces can be semi-private/ communal.

All developments regardless of their density will have green open spaces as laid down in the LAP.

People dont seem to be seeing the link between open space and gardens. Instead of gardens you are getting open space.

These open spaces are safe plays for kids to play as long as they are supervised properly by their parents just like in any situation.

I've attached a pdf showing how people can get pricate open sapce with in high density developments

OTK

kearnsr wrote:

How do you get high density with out highrise (and by high rise I mean anything over 2 stories)?

High-rise is a very vague term. I should have said 'buildings with more than 6-8 floors'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-rise

All developments regardless of their density will have green open spaces as laid down in the LAP.

Not every area has a LAP. A green open space may not be suitable for children to play in if it is too far or out of sight of the apartment windows, or if it is separated from the apartment by a road or car park. Enclosed squares are obviously a good fit for supervising kids. When the squares are too small relative to the building heights, they can be dark and play noise will reverberate, annoying the residents. Some apartment owners have tried to ban children from playing within their green courtyards (such as Clarion Quay).

godtabh

OTK wrote:

High-rise is a very vague term. I should have said 'buildings with more than 6-8 floors'.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-rise

Not every area has a LAP. A green open space may not be suitable for children to play in if it is too far or out of sight of the apartment windows, or if it is separated from the apartment by a road or car park. Enclosed squares are obviously a good fit for supervising kids. When the squares are too small relative to the building heights, they can be dark and play noise will reverberate, annoying the residents. Some apartment owners have tried to ban children from playing within their green courtyards (such as Clarion Quay).

No apartments have super sound insulation. Concrete is great!

As I said in this regard highrise is anything over 2 stories. I was trying to seperate houses from aparment blocks.

Highrise doesnt exisit here in terms of large buildings like NY Paris etc and we are only catching up with the likes of Ashtown and Royal Canal Park.

Kids should be supervised at all times. With recent high profile kidnappings I would have thought that would be a given.

Familes have and can be raised in high density developments and will have to be if new familes want homes be it renting or buying in these new devlopments.

Victor

kearnsr wrote:

How do you get high density with out highrise (and by high rise I mean anything over 2 stories)?

Are you saying the Georgian core in Dublin is high rise? High rise is generally considered over 8 storeys.

There are lots of ways to increase density:
* Terraces instead of semi-detached.
* 3- and 4-storey instead of 2-storey.
* Improving layouts.
* Avoiding low-density ancilliary usages in premium areas.
* Underground car parking.

The problem with thigns like Ballymun was that they were high rise in parkland settings, no denser than the surrounding housing estates. Add a lack of facilities and deprivation and it was ripe for disaster.

godtabh

Victor wrote:

Are you saying the Georgian core in Dublin is high rise? High rise is generally considered over 8 storeys.

There are lots of ways to increase density:
* Terraces instead of semi-detached.
* 3- and 4-storey instead of 2-storey.
* Improving layouts.
* Avoiding low-density ancilliary usages in premium areas.
* Underground car parking.

The problem with thigns like Ballymun was that they were high rise in parkland settings, no denser than the surrounding housing estates. Add a lack of facilities and deprivation and it was ripe for disaster.

In the context of what we were talking about anything above 2 stories away from your typical 3/4 bed house to me would be high rise.

Terraces are low to medium 3-4 storey would fit in the same category. Obiously the higher you go the higher density you get. It then follows for higher density you need higher buildings.

At the time Georgian Dublin would've been high rise high density dwellings.