New minimum apartment sizes introduced by Minister for Environment Alan Kelly last month cannot actually be built, according to the Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI).

RIAI vice-president and housing spokesman John O’Mahony said it was “not possible” to design an apartment within the new minimum sizes because the smallest permissible rooms would not fit inside.

The anomaly has arisen because, when Mr Kelly issued the Planning Guidelines on Design Standards for New Apartments last December, he only reduced the overall size of one, two and three bedroom apartments, but did not cut the minimum size of bedrooms and living rooms/kitchens.

The mismatch means the required rooms cannot be squeezed into smaller apartments, said Mr O’Mahony, managing director of O’Mahony Pike Architects.

“I don’t think anyone road-tested this, because we have done a lot of research on this - it is not possible to design an apartment to the minimum sizes set down in the national standards.”

Improve affordability

Mr Kelly said he was issuing the guidelines to kickstart apartment development and improve the affordability of housing in Dublin.

The Dublin City Development Plan had set the minimum size of one-bed apartments at 55 sq m, two-bed apartments at 90 sq m and three-bed apartments at 100 sq m.

The new standards – which took effect immediately – set one-bed apartments at 45 sq m, two-bed apartments at 73 sq m and three-bed apartments at 90 sq m, but the component parts, ie the rooms, remain the same as with the council sizes.

In any one development these smallest sizes could account for up to half of apartments. However, Mr O’Mahony said, these apartments cannot physically be built.

“Once all requirements around room sizes and storage are satisfied, the true ‘practical’ minimum areas of apartments are circa 49sq m for one bed, circa 80sq m for a two bed, and circa 97sq m for a three bed,” he continued.

Even these sizes would be in “best case scenario” conditions he said, and would not be achievable in all building configurations.

Fire regulations

He added it would not be possible to fit bigger rooms in by reducing the width of corridors because these had to be a minimum size to satisfy fire regulations.

“Whether this anomaly has been identified by the Department [of the Environment], I don’t know,” he said.

In a statement, the department said the guidelines were providing for “starter homes” and storage could be provided “within the block” such as in the basement, so room and apartment size requirements could be met.

However, it said: “In actual practice, designers and developers will opt to exceed the minimum requirements by meeting storage requirements within apartments, meaning that minimum apartment sizes may only actually be necessary to deploy in particular design or site configuration situations.”

The guidelines state provision for storage “should” be made as part of required minimum apartment floor areas.