Frontlines: Why We Need A Property “Rebellion” – Not Another Bubble

Are the Irish addicted to the adrenalin rush of boom and bust and to the associated sequence of elation and despair, relief and stress, joy and rage? It often seems so. Notwithstanding all that happened in Ireland between 2002 and 2013 and all that was supposedly learned, it appears that the cycle is renewing itself.

Of course, some of what we’re hearing is very good news and one doesn’t want to disrespect the genuine recovery. But your heart sinks when one hand holds the property sections of national newspapers and the other holds reports of the twin crises of homelessness and student accommodation.
Some see those broadsheet sections as a kind of property porn. Although housed within the framework of newspapers, they’re largely promotional vehicles. That duality is part and parcel of the modern media landscape and is ok once it’s understood for what it is.
At the same time, outside of the newspapers there is considerable discomfort at the return of the national property preoccupation and what many suspect is media greed for the ad income generated by a vigorous property market.
Fair enough. It would be ironic if, on the one hand editorial staff lectured everyone on the need to learn from past mistakes, while the property department was busy rebuilding the very same culture as existed before.
That aside, quite clearly banks have suddenly started giving mortgage approval and the current housing supply is inadequate to meet demand. This same imbalance led to a national hysteria between 2005 and 2007, when thousands of people were spooked into buying property at grossly inflated prices in order to “get a foothold on the property ladder” – and we know where that landed everyone.
The long-term solution is to have a steady balance between supply and demand – which is not easy necessarily, where cities and towns have large homogenous housing areas, generally occupied by people of similar ages and social profiles. Ireland has long been a textbook example of how not to provide housing. It all needs to be much better coordinated.
Is there a short-term solution? For a start, people need to understand that they’re not completely stuck, that there will be additional housing, that it will be planned and integrated in a way that has not previously been the case and that it will be coming onstream steadily and soon and that maximum efforts will be made to ensure that prices don’t ratchet up exponentially as cut-throats extract their profits.
Adding extra temporary supply could also make a major contribution to easing the pressure. Landlords won’t like it but so what?
To consider how this might be done, you should look at the rebel architect movement, also known as the architecture of activism. This movement has been profiled in a number of media including Al Jazeera and the Guardian. It is made up of architects who work in tough areas and marginal environments.
In Spain, Santiago Cirugeda and his team work on abandoned municipal land to make buildings that answer the needs of people. They use rapid building techniques, recycled materials and volunteer labour. In Nigeria, Kunlé Adeyemi has envisaged a city of floating homes to let residents stay in their community and safe from rising tides – while also improving the quality of their lives and health. In Vietnam, Vo Trong Nghia is trying to restore green space to Ho Chi Minh. And so on. Some of their work and that of others around the world is stunning.
Since student accommodation is a key factor in increasing demand in the rental sector, and college accommodation is in the pipeline, isn’t there a case for a major emergency project taking the activist architecture model and applying it on property sites that are unlikely to be developed for some years, to cater for that sector in particular?
There’s plenty of land. If it were clear that these developments would be designed as temporary and re-locatable, there are sites owned by county councils, NAMA and religious organisations that could be pressed into service very quickly.
And if the main emphasis was on student accommodation (given that they are seasonal occupants and that longer term solutions are planned) then let us all remember that – if the context is right – students are far more adaptable than the generality of the population.
The thing is, while the Irish have great capacity to deliver this kind of thing in other countries, we never seem to think of doing so at home. And it’s not just the planning laws (which could restrict temporary housing on any of a dozen grounds); nor is it simply that political decision-makers are cowed by the interests of property-owners (though, of course, some are); nor is it specifically the absence of what is derisively called “joined-up thinking”.
No, it’s more profound than all that. It’s a marrow-deep inertia. “If it’s not in my business plan then I’m off the hook,” kind of thinking. That and an absence of any serious social dialogue. We just don’t generate consensus on important issues like this: we leave it to the market and the media.
The solution to the immediate housing crisis demands consensus as well as creativity. But it’s so pressing that it may best be achieved by leadership that melds the visionary and the entrepreneurial. Think of a blend of Live Aid and Ryanair! That, if you got it, would solve the problem by Christmas.

Rebel Architecture is a six-part series. It premiered on Al Jazeera on 18 August. (aljazeera.com/programmes/rebelarchitecture)