Planning Law, Planning Now and Planning Ahead

Yesterday, my friend in the fabulous restoration house showed me photos of the 12 inches of guano that filled an entire floor; pigeons had nested there for years between a false ceiling and the attic. The fumes from this toxic substance can only have made the tenants sick and they would never have known why. Dead birds were found in the water tanks, water from which would have been used for brushing teeth... er.

One of the better bedsits I've come across!

You can see why there is new Planning legislation regulating the size of a bedsit. It's hard to believe that greedy landlords got tenants for them. That was the problem, in many cases these landlords were receiving rent allowance payments via the social welfare or in others providing homeless shelter on behalf of local authorities. It was a win win. Until the day came when they decided it was better to sell than to adapt their houses and comply. And by then, the market had dropped, especially for seemingly unfeasible restoration projects, sometimes values by up to 60%. On one house where I was involved in Dublin 6, the owner turned down 2.7million in 2007, it was in 7 squalid bedsits, I came on board with the new owners who got it for significantly less. These houses deserve care as part of our urban fabric, they’re the wallpaper that surrounds us. Hopefully more earnest buyers will not be daunted by the task of taking them on and the local authority will be conscious of time and mortgage repayments when they are making their deliberations, quickly and favourably.

I also said goodbye to a valuable ally yesterday, I can't call him a friend, he was better than one. I have only known him since last August, we didn't actually go anywhere together, we just talked, rather he listened, and I listened, and soaked it all up. He helped me get over the final hurdle of re-structuring my book, and even more importantly getting over taking in tenants. He has helped me focus on the present, to avoid planning too far ahead, especially as the country changes by the hour.

I knew it couldn't last, and I got more time with him than I thought, but it had to end, and I'm left with good memories and new skills, I hope to remember them.

I've been helping Cost Centre #2 with his MSc application this evening, one of the paragraphs he's required to write is 'Where do you see yourself in five years?' He told me that the idea is so outmoded they shouldn't be asking it anymore. Well that's a good sign, planning ahead without feeling derailed by seismic changes, challenging them cheerfully, is a new lesson for me. One my twenty-one year old already knows.