Government intervention in creche closure has parallels with reduced landlord rights in PRS

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patfert1

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Reading this article today in the IT (paywalled):
www.irishtimes.com

Childcare shortage: State raises concerns over planned closure of Limerick creche

Owner has applied for planning permission to convert facility in Mungret into apartments
www.irishtimes.com www.irishtimes.com

The gist of it is that an operator of a Limerick creche with 80 children is closing the creche at the end of this month. They have applied for permission to convert the facility into apartments.

The Dept of Children is now intervening, "raising concerns the plan would “significantly” worsen a shortage of childcare places locally"
In an effort to treat childcare as critical infrastructure, the Government is going to step in more regularly in cases where creches are either closing or being converted into other purposes.
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We have discussed many times in other threads about how the government relies on the PRS to provide rental accomodation in the state, yet repeated measures intended to support tenant rights are in turn reducing landlord "rights" and leading to landlords leaving the PRS.

I see a parallel in this story about the creche. The state is relying on private operators to provide pre-school childcare, yet wants to intervene (I would term it "interfere") in the rights of those operators to exit the business if they decide. The operators may have solid reasons why this is not an attractive business for them anymore, whether personal or financial.

The article goes on to say that the Minister for Children Norma Foley ...
“would like to express her concern regarding the change of use of the existing early learning and childcare building at Mungret and resultant loss of early learning and childcare places, with no indication of replacement provision outlined in the application”.
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Should the current operator have a social responsibility to plan alternative places for the children?
There is no indication that the state want to step in to operate this, or to provide alternative state creche places. Rather, it appears the goal is to block the planning permission application in order to "force" the current operators to continue running the creche - or sell as a going concern for whatever they can get.

Like landlords in the PRS, why would anyone want to get into the creche business if the government will prevent them from ultimately exiting?
 
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Why did the local authority grant planning permission, including the change of use?
The State constantly interferes in the planning process, and for good reason. The question for me is how was planning granted in the first place.
 
I wonder as well that as the PRS keeps shrinking that won't be the next intervention - preventing you from getting out at all.

Per the RTBs own 2019 Report here shows 170k landlords. I think they are in denial about the exodus, but I wonder steps they will take when that penny finally drops.
 
But a planning system, if it's to be of any use, does have to aim to ensure that communities do have the services and facilties they require — any sufficiently large group of residences needs to be supported by shops, schools, recreation facilities, etc. It's not necessary that the government should run all the shops, schools, recreation facilities, etc — that's a separate question. If you try to rezone land in a way that will result in an area not have sufficient services of a particular kind, that''s a legitimate ground for opposing the rezoning application, and it''s irrelevant that the government doesn't want to rund the service directly.

You're not drawing the obvious concusion from this story. Despite all the claims about pro-tenant regulation making the landlording business unattractive and driving people out, here we've got somebody who wants to get his land rezoned so that he can get into the landlording business. Clearly, it's not as unattractive as all that.
Purple said:
Why did the local authority grant planning permission, including the change of use?
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They didn't, as I understand it. The planning application has been made, but as yet it has not been decided. The Dept of Children has mad submissions arguing that it should be refused.
 
TomEdison said:
They didn't, as I understand it. The planning application has been made, but as yet it has not been decided. The Dept of Children has mad submissions arguing that it should be refused.
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Yes, that appears to be the case.

TomEdison said:
Despite all the claims about pro-tenant regulation making the landlording business unattractive and driving people out, here we've got somebody who wants to get his land rezoned so that he can get into the landlording business. Clearly, it's not as unattractive as all that.
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I take your point, although it could be they want to sell the apartments. They may perceive landlording is a more "hands-off" business and more profitable than running a creche, we don't know.

My point is that the government doesn't want to provide what many would see as essential services, yet behaves in a contradictory way which may deter private providers of such essential services, rather than facilitating them. (I stress I know nothing about the creche business so this was just a first impression reading the article. I do know about the landlording business.)

TomEdison said:
But a planning system, if it's to be of any use, does have to aim to ensure that communities do have the services and facilties they require
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Absolutely, but it is one thing designing the planning system to enable the provision of essential services, or block undesirable services (apartments are not undesirable). It's another thing to blatantly use the planning system to block a private individual exiting a business they clearly do not want to continue in.
 
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patfert1 said:
Absolutely, but it is one thing designing the planning system to enable the provision of essential services, or block undesirable services (apartments are not undesirable). It's another think to blatantly use the planning system to block a private individual exiting a business they clearly do not want to continue in.
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It could also be that it is more valuable to just sell the building vacant with planning permission for apartments rather than as an operating creche.

Should the government force them to sell it as a creche to another creche operator albeit at a lower price?
 
Greenbook said:
Should the government force them to sell it as a creche to another creche operator albeit at a lower price?
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No, but the State, through the local authority, can refuse to grant a change of use for the property. A Creche is usually classified as a specific use building rather than a general commercial use building. The Local planners can insist that is stays a Creche, just as they can insist a house remains a house.
 
If it were my creche and planning was refused on the basis of interference by a minister, I would close it up and reapply again in a year. Let the Minister take the broadside from the angry parents.

The comparison in treatment between the PRS and the Childcare industry is a strong one and points to absolute Govt ineptitude. They seem to think they can dig their way out of a hole. Remarkable.
 
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They can’t be forced to stay in business, if they want to close up they can…

If the government wants to make sure there are facilities they can incentivise private sector to provide them or provide them themselves.

A more creative use of school buildings is one way, and many decades ago we tried to do that in my kids school and the department for education and insurers and basically everyone put barriers up. Even the teacher union stuck their oar in…and we had a provider ready and waiting we weren’t asking teachers to work overtime.
So the kids went off to various providers and the empty rooms remained empty and we raised funds to pay the school utility bills. No winners… 26 years later theres still a shortage of places.
 
Annieindublin said:
A more creative use of school buildings is one way, and many decades ago we tried to do that in my kids school and the department for education and insurers and basically everyone put barriers up. Even the teacher union stuck their oar in…and we had a provider ready and waiting we weren’t asking teachers to work overtime.
So the kids went off to various providers and the empty rooms remained empty and we raised funds to pay the school utility bills. No winners… 26 years later theres still a shortage of places.
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Like they do in France and other developed countries.
 
Many new large housing developments require a crèche building as part of the development. I don’t think there is a requirement on anyone in particular to run it but that’s its use.

Would you support the conversion of these units into bookies if the developers found it more profitable?

It’s an area I think the state should step into but I also think that it’s not unacceptable to do what they are doing. Not everything gets to be free market especially when dealing with essential services.
 
Persia said:
If it were my creche and planning was refused on the basis of interference by a minister, I would close it up and reapply again in a year. Let the Minister take the broadside from the angry parents.
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The article says that they have already laid off the staff and it will close at end of this month, so if they don't get planning permission for conversion to apartments, it seems unlikely the current operators will reopen the creche.

I agree that if the building is currently zoned for a creche, then there are very reasonable grounds to object to conversion to apartments. But refusing planning permission will not cause a creche with 80 places to suddenly reappear. As you say, the owners may leave it idle for a while and try again, or sell only when the right bidder comes along. Probably that's what most of us would do in this case.

faketales said:
It’s an area I think the state should step into but I also think that it’s not unacceptable to do what they are doing. Not everything gets to be free market especially when dealing with essential services.
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Agree with your point. But this gives the question, if the creche indeed closes, and the current building owner leaves the property idle, since it's an essential service, but one that the current operator is unwilling or unable to run as a going concern, will the state step in to operate a new creche for 80 children, there or elsewhere? Or make a compulsory purchase order in order to sell it to someone who will?
 
patfert1 said:
But refusing planning permission will not cause a creche with 80 places to suddenly reappear.
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No. But it preserves the possibility of a creche. If there is nowhere in the neighbourhood zoned in a way that permits use as a creche then it is impossible that there will be a creche, and that would be a very poor outcome.
 
TomEdison said:
No. But it preserves the possibility of a creche. If there is nowhere in the neighbourhood zoned in a way that permits use as a creche then it is impossible that there will be a creche, and that would be a very poor outcome.
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That 'possibility' will help alot of parents..

Why would it be impossible? Can they not just re-zone another area... its the planning laws, like other laws, that are so convoluted and make it difficult for anything to happen..


If this creche wants to close and re-zone, why not? their are plenty of other options the government should and could offer.. state run creche, zone an other building for creche, allow creche's in schools as suggested above...
 
Colin4444 said:
If this creche wants to close and re-zone, why not? their are plenty of other options the government should and could offer.
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Are there though? What other properties in that area do you think would offer the same capacity for ~80 children? There has been a lot of development in that area over the years, availability of services like childcare is an important factor in the proper planning of communities. Some of the social problems we've encountered over the years was a result of adding residential capacity without consideration for the services the residents would need.

Change of use for commercial premises is often refused. Leaving a premises empty in the hopes of cashing in at some point in the future is risky business.
 
Colin4444 said:
Why would it be impossible? Can they not just re-zone another area... its the planning laws, like other laws, that are so convoluted and make it difficult for anything to happen..
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They can't just arbitrarily pick someone else's property in the district and rezone it for creche purposes.

What a canny developer would do is acquire another site, suitable for creche purpose, and then apply to rezone that site for creche purposes at the same time as applying to rezone the present creche site for residential purposes. Indeed, the objection to the rezoning application that has been made specifically points out that it doesn't do this.
 
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TomEdison said:
They can't just arbitrarily pick someone else's property in the district and rezone it for creche purposes.
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Of course not abitrary, but open it up and see who has location and wants to run the business, or state run creche, or schools etc etc
 
Colin4444 said:
Of course not abitrary, but open it up and see who has location and wants to run the business, or state run creche, or schools etc etc
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There's nothing else in the area that would offer the same scale. that's the rationale for advocating for a refusal.
 
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