Cabin for AirBnb

adocholiday

Hi all,

I'm fortunate enough to have a couple of acres of forestry and land with the house. We are considering putting a cabin or 2 on site as an Airbnb rental and I was wondering about the planning situation. I can't get a straight answer from the Council unless I submit a formal application but I don't want to go down that route just yet.

As of now we have the house, a large block shed to the rear that required a retention application when we bought, and a very large corrugated agricultural shed that was exempt from planning. We intend to keep anything we build within the limits of exemption, but because we already have 2 existing outbuildings and intend to use these cabins for commercial purposes we're not sure if we need to get planning for this. There is no overlooking or impacted sightlines to consider, but we are in a high amenity area where planning can be difficult to get. We are also in Rent Pressure Zone (laughable considering it's as rural as it gets here, but that's another thread).

Does anyone have experience with this? Just want to know if it's dead in the water before we even get going.

Del2005

A cabin that meets housing standards costs the same as a normal build.

You will need a change of use to commercial use and that can impact your tax exemptions, that's after paying taxes on the income from the cabins.

What are you near that will attract tourists to stay with you? Cabins that don't meet regulations aren't cheap to begin with, what will be your profit from the rentals?

adocholiday

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118749955#Comment_118749955

That's what we feared. We live about 15 minutes South of Glendalough and there are plenty of Airbnbs in the area that all seem to do well. To try to minimize costs and planning we were hoping to build a couple of very basic cabins, basically similar to a glamping pod, and rent them out on Airbnb. Visitors would have access to cooking/washing facilities in the house itself. Not looking to make a great deal of money from this, just a small side earner and nice to have people around, so we were hoping to keep costs as low as possible. Probably wouldn't be feasible if we have to meet building regs.

Lumen

Look up the planning applications for other glamping facilities, preferably in Wicklow, and use their websites to figure out which cabins they bought.

Some will have been existing campsites, ignore those. You want fairly recent new facilities on residential/farm sites.