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	Dublin City Council architect unable to design such apartments within size restrictions</p>
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	Minimum apartment sizes, introduced a year ago by former minister for the environment Alan Kelly, are too small to be wheelchair accessible, according to Dublin City Council&rsquo;s architects&rsquo; division.</p>
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	The council had set the minimum size of public or private one-bed apartments at 55sq m (592sq ft), two-bed apartments at 90sq m (969sq ft) and three-bed apartments at 100sq m (1,076sq ft).</p>
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	Mr Kelly had blamed excessive size standards for deterring construction and in December 2015 set new standards which set one-bed apartments at 45sq m (484sq ft), two-bed apartments at 73sq m (786sq ft) and three-bed apartments at 90sq m (969sq ft).</p>
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	Deputy city architect Brian Swan said he has attempted to design accessible apartments within the minimum size restrictions, but has been unable to do so.</p>
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	&ldquo;If you widen a corridor or you make a bathroom bigger, it comes out of one of the other rooms and then they drop below standard because everything is operating at the minimum,&rdquo; he said.</p>
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	&ldquo;Where under the previous standards the scale was sufficient that that impact was acceptable, when you are building to the minimums your envelope is already set.&rdquo;</p>
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	The chairman of the council&rsquo;s housing committee, Sinn F&eacute;in councillor Daith&iacute; Doolan, said the council&rsquo;s ability to provide accessible homes had been undermined.</p>
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	Botched proposal</p>
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	&ldquo;The problem Dublin City Council finds itself in is a direct result of former minister Alan Kelly&rsquo;s botched proposal to reduce sizes for apartments.&rdquo; He said he would be seeking an urgent meeting with Minister for Housing Simon Coveney on the matter.</p>
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	&ldquo;We now need a speedy response from Minister Coveney. In Dublin a majority of future housing will be apartments. We don&rsquo;t want to have to have a battle over funding for every development to make apartments bigger.&rdquo;</p>
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	The reality that most housing in the city would in future be in apartment blocks raised issues not just with accommodating the needs of disabled people now, but would re-emerge when architects were trying to adapt homes in the future, Mr Swan said.</p>
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	&ldquo;Disability and age are very correlated issues. When you move from the idea of mainly building housing schemes to building apartments the opportunity isn&rsquo;t there for coming along and building extensions, you have to put things in at the start.&rdquo;</p>
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	The reduction of the minimum size of apartments that could be built in Dublin and elsewhere raised concerns at the time because it was not coupled with a reduction of the minimum size of rooms within the apartment.</p>
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	The Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland&nbsp;has said this would make the apartments impossible to design.</p>
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	Mr Kelly said at the time that the architects&rsquo; claims were not true.</p>
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	&nbsp;</p>
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	(Published by the Irish Times on the 16th January 2017)</p>
<p>
	<a href="http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/kelly-s-flat-sizes-too-small-to-be-wheelchair-accessible-1.2937867">http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/kelly-s-flat-sizes-too-small-to-be-wheelchair-accessible-1.2937867</a></p>
