Cllr Pat Barden says people renting small backyard units fear being forced out of business under new planning regulations, despite claims the legislation is needed to rebalance the county’s shrinking rental supply
Cllr Chris Maxwell highlighted that tourism in rural Mayo is reliant on Airbnb hosts as hotels alone cannot accommodate the influx of visitors to the county. Photo: (Alamy/PA).
New legislation aimed at bringing properties back onto the rental market will penalise those letting out small “out-houses” in their back-gardens. That’s according to Councillor Pat Barden who has asked that Wexford County Council (WCC) look favourably upon those who have been renting out small properties without the requisite planning permissions.
Cllr Pat Barden was speaking in light of measures, initiated by central government, which will require owners of Airbnb or other short-term lets to seek planning permission to operate as a commercial property and to be registered as a provider of short-term accommodation.
“A lot of people in the county have operated out-houses without planning, it’s going to create a huge problem if they have to go back and apply for retention,” said Cllr Barden at the February meeting of WCC. “Those in this industry are very worried about being put out of business. It’s a directive from government to try and ease the housing crisis, but these people aren’t interfering with that.”
Explaining that the rules had been created to “rebalance housing stock” across the country, chief executive Eddie Taaffe said the focus was specifically on properties which had been formally been let out on a long-term basis.
“The issue is there are a lot of properties which were previously used as long-term rentals which are now short-term lets, it’s more lucrative for the property owner to do that,” he said. “The reality is that in some parts of the county we have too much of that and not enough rentals.”
Asked what guidance he would offer to property owners ahead of the May 20 deadline, Mr Taaffe said there was very clear instructions from central government.
“The direction is simple, if you don’t have planning permission for short-term lets you will have to put it back out for long-term rental. We do have properties in the town here where people are happy to let them out for three months of the summer and leave them empty for the rest of the year. We have high rents as a result of that. They’re making as much in three months as they would for an entire year and there has to be a rebalancing of that.
“The reality is there’s very few properties available for rent in Co Wexford but there’s hundreds of short-term lets. A very significant cohort of people were in the traditional long-term rent and got out of that market and went into the short-term. We have to get back to have a proper functioning rental market.”
However, Cllr Barden said many properties in Co Wexford weren’t suitable for permanent residence.
“These are properties in people’s yards, you’re not going to let someone move into your yard and live there, these are never going to be family homes.”
Accepting that not all those impacted by the new legislation were profiteering from short-term letting, Mr Taaffe said that anyone who applied for planning permission would have their applications dealt with “appropriately”.
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.
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