New planning guidelines for 'hostel-style' Airbnb home rentals are on the way
Housing officials want to provide ‘clarity’ for both property owners and councils.
THE HOUSING DEPARTMENT will come up with new guidelines to make clear when a residential property needs to be approved for commercial use as an Airbnb rental.
Yesterday, An Bord Pleanála upheld a Dublin City Council ruling that an apartment owner in Temple Bar needed to apply for planning permission if they wanted to continue renting out the property on the accommodation-sharing site.
Minister for Housing Simon Coveney today backed the decision – adding that his department planned to come up with new guidelines for local authorities dealing with the issue of short-term lets on Airbnb.
“As far as I can see, this was a property that was being used almost like a B&B, whereby there was regular turnover every couple of days,” he said.
Coveney said his department would work on the issue in the coming days and issue a letter about guidelines to local authorities, especially those in urban areas.
“I think we also, as a department with a responsibility for policy and guidelines around planning, need to provide guidelines and clarity now for chief executives across all local authorities.”
He said it was also important that property owners “know where they stand”, nothing that many people in Ireland were using Airbnb successfully – but it was a “different thing” when properties were being advertised for sale with €80,000 in Airbnb income.
“That is effectively no different to a hostel-style or B&B-style accommodation,” he said.
In the recent Temple Bar case, the two-bed apartment had been listed for sale with an asking price of €425,000. The advertisement described it as “an exceptional 18% gross yield real estate investment opportunity” with a 90% occupancy rate over 2015 on Airbnb.
Housing Minister Simon Coveney
Need for regulation
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Dr Lorcan Sirr, a lecturer in housing and urban economics at the Dublin Institute of Technology, said Dublin City Council needs an official policy about Airbnb usage in the city.
“During the summer, there were over 3,300 apartments in the middle of the city that were available on Airbnb. In the middle of a housing crisis that’s a significant number and arguably a driver of rents.”
The council’s deputy planning officer Mary Conway told the same programme that the council would consider any property being continually let on a short-term basis as a material change of use.
Conway said the council is preparing a written submission to the Department of Housing asking it to update planning legislation in this regard.
According to Airbnb’s figures from earlier this year, some 400,000 guests had used its service in Ireland since 2009.
Reporting by Órla Ryan and Peter Bodkin.
