Students Are Priced Out of Purpose Built Accommodation by Dieu-Hang Tran

The Loom, one of the latest purposed-built student accommodations on Cork Street. Photo by Dieu-Hang Tran

The Social Housing Strategy in 2015 was aimed to address the housing pressure via student accommodations, however, it does not benefit student and neither benefits the residents of the area.

by Tran Dieu-Hang

Areport by Higher Education Authority (HEA) shows a constant lack of supply for student accommodations. By 2024, 25 182 bed units will be needed to meet the demand of 68 679 students. The report suggests the private rental sector should be more flexible with the rent-a-room scheme and more student accommodation should be built.

In 2017, National Student Accommodation Strategy was in progress. The strategy immediately attracted developers to invest in purposed-built student accommodations (also known as PBSA). In county Dublin, the main area for this plan was Dublin North and Dublin South-West. The boom time for PBSA was between 2014 - 2020 when almost €950 million worth of asset was made for student accommodation, according to a Linsey’s report.

“The original idea for student accommodations was that the more you provided then the market starts to find the balance, and the price will reduce where there’s more supply,” said Stephen Coyne, programme manager of Dublin South-West’s economic development, “but it hasn’t happened yet,” he added.

However, the price for PBSA is out-of-read for most student. According to TU Dublin’s cost of living guide, an average budget for rent in Dublin is €585 per month per student. This budget should be doubled if a student wants to live in purposed built student accommodations. On Apartostudent.com, a standard bedroom starts from €260 per week, it means €1040 per month. Similarly, Heyday Student Living offers an en-suite bedroom from €268 per week.

“The name doesn’t go with the program, it doesn’t help student,” said Hiya Saikia, a thirdyear student at Griffith College, “if you stay outside of student accommodation in a shared house or a shared apartment, then you pay less than what you pay in student accommodation”

In the second half of 2020, there were a number of operators got permissions to convert student accommodations into short-term lets due to ‘lack of demand’ in the pandemic and also the difficulties in the tourist industry. Dublin Inquirer reported about 1000 bed units have been converted into short-term lets until 31/05/2022.

“The model that they are operating has changed dramatically because of Covid, and it’s still not clear how much it affects the business,” said Stephen.

It’s not until the pandemic that student-to-tourist accommodation conversions are permitted. In January 2019, Dublin City Council granted DWS, an operator company, to re-purpose 713 bed units into short-term lets. In September 2019, DWS was allowed to convert 599 student beds to non-student co-living.

On 13th October, a protest was held to call Owen Keegan, CEO of Dublin City Council to resign. The protest sparkled following the CEO’s ‘sarcasm’ reply to a student union president raised concern about 571 student accommodations were converted into short-term lets.

Ruairí Power, the student mentioned in the reply of Owen Keegan, talked about the union’s reaction towards the conversion: “We found quite strongly that this is wrong…there was a demand for student accommodation. Isn’t that weird? Because the perception that Irish students can’t pay the same rate as what is supposed to be more for affluent international students,” said Ruairí.

In the reply, Keegan justified the circumstance of the conversion that there was no demand for student accommodation over summer. According to Ruairí, the union did not accept the excuse, he said “the acceptable circumstance might be Covid when everything was delivered over zoom, so there was less demand for student who come to college and campuses.”

“Dublin city council is here to grant the permission and allow them to keep the rent artificially inflated,” Ruairí added, “where previously they could have fill the room if they bring the rent down in order to keep the demand.” Keegan replied: “If I believe this is artificial inflated charge in the market, you should start developing it yourselves.”

Ruairí said “There is a big sense that what is coming up in Dublin are hotels and commerce, it’s not a place for people to live, they are coming to the city just for tours. We don’t think it is the best for students and we ask him to resign because of that.”

The Liberties has changed significantly since the Social Housing Strategy started in 2015. The area was aimed to be constructed with new residential buildings and student accommodations.

“If I was asked 5 years ago, I would say ‘what’s wrong with students?’” said Trevor Keppel, a town planner and a resident of The Liberties since 2016. “There is nothing wrong with students… It (student accommodation) doesn’t contribute to the local area, it’s not what people want. They want living cost to go down, they want living options.”

“And the problem is the way student accommodations is built, its price is very high,” Trevor added, “we want Dublin to be an international place, but it seems the only people who can afford it are international students.”

Weaver Community Garden was a project to connect the locals and enrich the environment. Trevor was the last gardener to join in the garden before it was demolished in 2018 for housing. There were people who had been gardening for 12 years, according to Trevor. The effort they put in has enrich the area “not for their own but ecologically”.

“Now I’m looking at the building site not yet finished, it was a big loss and it’s really unfair because they didn’t replace it (the garden) with another one”

“Thinking all those spaces have been used for hotels and for student accommodations…it does not do back to the community what they desperately want which is housing, but not student housing, expensive housing”

The Liberties area was known as having one of the lowest open spaces among the inner-city areas. However, since the housing scheme was in effect, the green area was taken and replaced with more building sites. The loss of the community garden led to a campaign by the gardeners to bring the garden back in 2018. However, with an urgent need for housing, the replacement was failed. Since then, there was no plan for a new community garden was made by the city council.