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Student accommodation crisis in Dublin

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    #32
    y0ssar1an22
    Registered Users Posts: 17,061 ✭✭✭✭y0ssar1an22


    Aren't UCD converting that hotel across the road (Montrose?) into student accommodation? I wonder when it'll be ready and how many students it will accommodate?


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    #33
    Peregrine
    Moderators, Education Moderators Posts: 26,402 Mod ✭✭✭✭Peregrine


    y0ssar1an22 wrote: »
    Aren't UCD converting that hotel across the road (Montrose?) into student accommodation? I wonder when it'll be ready and how many students it will accommodate?

    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/students-to-start-semester-living-in-hotels-due-to-building-delays-1.1900894


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    #34
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,285 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    y0ssar1an22 wrote: »
    Aren't UCD converting that hotel across the road (Montrose?) into student accommodation? I wonder when it'll be ready and how many students it will accommodate?

    It opened last week- and when its fully running will have capacity for 210 (which includes 18 couples in superior double suites). It currently has 166 residents- which will increase in number when the top floor of the conversion finally opens next February.


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    #35
    Saipanne
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,882 ✭✭✭Saipanne


    Studying in Dublin is expensive.

    Stop the presses.

    It was expensive in my time too. Was that a crisis?


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    #36
    truffle5
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 75 ✭✭truffle5


    Gatling wrote: »
    No I didn't say knock them down and rebuild them , I suggested building smaller satellite campuses outside of the main city based ones .
    That can offer the courses and facilities so students aren't forced to travel to the city based centers this reliving the pressures on student accommodation ,

    I'm not sure why you're getting attacked for this suggestion. It's a great idea that works in many other countries. In the USA you see entire "college towns" where the whole community centres around the university and the students basically dominate the place. This keeps the rowdy students out of major city's business cores. There is ample high-rise student accommodation in these towns thereby lessening the demand in the big cities.


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    #37
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,285 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    truffle5 wrote: »
    I'm not sure why you're getting attacked for this suggestion. It's a great idea that works in many other countries. In the USA you see entire "college towns" where the whole community centres around the university and the students basically dominate the place. This keeps the rowdy students out of major city's business cores. There is ample high-rise student accommodation in these towns thereby lessening the demand in the big cities.

    Sounds like Galway.......?
    Or indeed Maynooth?


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    #38
    truffle5
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 75 ✭✭truffle5


    The_Conductor wrote: »
    Sounds like Galway.......?
    Or indeed Maynooth?

    Yes, Maynooth would be a comparable Irish example. Galway on the other hand is a living breathing Irish city that does not have the capacity to deal with a massive influx of students. Luckily NUIG isn't that big so the problem isn't as pronounced as it is in Dublin.


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    #39
    ted1
    Registered Users Posts: 23,535 ✭✭✭✭ted1


    DIT will be in grangegorman soon enough with accomodation on site, I wonder have they done feasibility studies which look at converting the old building is student accomodation. The model being used by the oils mountrose hotel looks like a good one. http://zigguratstudents.ie

    Even if its late: http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/students-to-start-semester-living-in-hotels-due-to-building-delays-1.1900894


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    #40
    snubbleste
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 31,117 ✭✭✭✭snubbleste


    truffle5 wrote: »
    Yes, Maynooth would be a comparable Irish example. Galway on the other hand is a living breathing Irish city that does not have the capacity to deal with a massive influx of students. Luckily NUIG isn't that big so the problem isn't as pronounced as it is in Dublin.
    Oh really?
    Galway has a population of 75,000.
    Nuig has ~17000 students, Gmit has ~5,000 students. Then there are PLC colleges, private third level colleges..


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    #41
    Popoutman
    Registered Users Posts: 1,363 ✭✭✭Popoutman


    UL has effectively made Castletroy a campus town.

    Quote from Wikipedia on Castletroy: "The population in of Castletroy is now approximately 32,506 people, of which 16,573 are students." A lot of the UL staff are living locally as well.

    People often forget that UL is not in Limerick City at all, but in County Limerick on the outskirts of the city.


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    #42
    Mrs OBumble
    Registered Users Posts: 25,965 ✭✭✭✭Mrs OBumble


    The_Conductor wrote: »
    In all honesty- and I am quite familiar with the Galway market- there are very few vacant properties within an easy commute of NUIG.

    And I'm not particularly aware of them having much in the way un-used teaching space, either.

    A university needs housing for staff and students, and teaching space. Somehow I'm picking that the places which have unused housing (on the scale needed to support a college) probably don't have the teaching space, and may struggle to attract the quality staff.


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    #43
    leeroybrown
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,563 ✭✭✭leeroybrown


    Gatling wrote: »
    No you build smaller campuses out side of the main cities and in more counties this would put less stress on city based accommodation as it would make it easier for students to commute from towns and villlages on a daily basis ,
    Universities need economy of scale. There are currently too many third level institutions in Ireland to keep them internationally competitive and segmenting campuses is something that has never worked for any of the existing Universities even when real effort was made to do it.
    Gatling wrote: »
    No I didn't say knock them down and rebuild them , I suggested building smaller satellite campuses outside of the main city based ones .
    That can offer the courses and facilities so students aren't forced to travel to the city based centers this reliving the pressures on student accommodation ,
    That doesn't work. Unless you've offering very niche courses that are suited to being decentralised you end up with poorly staffed campuses that don't attract students.
    truffle5 wrote: »
    I'm not sure why you're getting attacked for this suggestion. It's a great idea that works in many other countries. In the USA you see entire "college towns" where the whole community centres around the university and the students basically dominate the place. This keeps the rowdy students out of major city's business cores. There is ample high-rise student accommodation in these towns thereby lessening the demand in the big cities.
    Again this is an issue of scale. In the US they build a state college in a large town (say 40,000+) people then provide a huge University campus for anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 or more students. We already have too many Universities in Ireland diluting the sector without spuriously setting up Universities in the middle of nowhere.


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    #44
    leeroybrown
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,563 ✭✭✭leeroybrown


    On the topic of student housing I think the Universities should be much more proactive in providing suitable student accommodation blocks. You can achieve excellent density in blocks like these and so long as they're of a reasonable standard most students (particularly first years and international students) are very happy to live in them.


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    #45
    MouseTail
    Registered Users Posts: 1,663 ✭✭✭MouseTail


    A new Section 50 type relief in the next budget?


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    #46
    omicron
    Registered Users Posts: 835 ✭✭✭omicron


    y0ssar1an22 wrote: »
    Aren't UCD converting that hotel across the road (Montrose?) into student accommodation? I wonder when it'll be ready and how many students it will accommodate?

    AFAIK that was done privately, not by UCD. The cheapest rooms went for €185 per week and sold out instantly.

    leeroybrown wrote: »
    On the topic of student housing I think the Universities should be much more proactive in providing suitable student accommodation blocks. You can achieve excellent density in blocks like these and so long as they're of a reasonable standard most students (particularly first years and international students) are very happy to live in them.

    UCD are building new blocks of student accommodation, can't find the link right now but I think its for 400 or so, which would bring the total campus accommodation to around 3500. They could have accommodation for 5000+ though easily and still sell out instantly.


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    #47
    leeroybrown
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,563 ✭✭✭leeroybrown


    omicron wrote: »
    UCD are building new blocks of student accommodation, can't find the link right now but I think its for 400 or so, which would bring the total campus accommodation to around 3500. They could have accommodation for 5000+ though easily and still sell out instantly.
    Are they building them "on campus"? If so UCD are in a unique position in that their campus is a huge land bank. For years they viewed it as land bank to capitalise their development off (so Celtic Tiger) but now they realistically have an excellent source of student accommodation. NUIG also have quite a bit of land but they're tighter than a ducks rectum when it comes to investing any money in student welfare so an external partner would be required to take the risk. Perhaps DCU have some land but apart from that the other Universities with accommodation problems are dependent on what their cities can provide.


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    #48
    markpb
    Registered Users Posts: 9,309 ✭✭✭markpb


    DCUs campus is about as full as it can get, they've already started building on top of existing buildings. They down own a second site (on Griffith Ave) but it's completely disconnected from the rest of the campus.


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    #49
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,285 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    leeroybrown wrote: »
    Are they building them "on campus"? If so UCD are in a unique position in that their campus is a huge land bank. For years they viewed it as land bank to capitalise their development off (so Celtic Tiger) but now they realistically have an excellent source of student accommodation. NUIG also have quite a bit of land but they're tighter than a ducks rectum when it comes to investing any money in student welfare so an external partner would be required to take the risk. Perhaps DCU have some land but apart from that the other Universities with accommodation problems are dependent on what their cities can provide.

    Maynooth have zoned land at their disposal, Cork already have works in progress (alongside the very impressive pre-existing off-site student accommodation they developed)- WIT have land they could use, Athlone ditto- Sligo similar (those are only the institutions that immediately come to mind).

    Trinity in Dublin is almost uniquely constrained- and abandoning Dublin city centre- which was highly contentious at the time- in retrospect was remarkable foresight on the part of UCD.

    Institutions are not nearly as constrained as is being suggested- they do not however want to turn into hoteliers- which is what tends to happen when they go down this road.

    Also- keep in mind- government grants to 3rd levels- is at historically low levels. We do not have the tradition of alumni making large donations to their universities that exists in the States and elsewhere- and you can see just how hamstrung a lot of these places actually are.

    Montrose made sense- and is being run on a for-profit basis. Any more units going up- will be run on a for-profit basis- and if students think its going to be cut price accommodation- they may have to re-access this perspective.

    For now- developments such as these- are pie-in-the-sky- and unless more funding sources can be found- potentially by targeting successful alumni- they will remain aspirational.


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    #50
    The_Conductor
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 32,285 Mod ✭✭✭✭The_Conductor


    markpb wrote: »
    DCUs campus is about as full as it can get, they've already started building on top of existing buildings. They down own a second site (on Griffith Ave) but it's completely disconnected from the rest of the campus.

    The fact that its disconnected from the rest of campus- really is neither here nor there. Its highly unusual for a university to have all its faculties and schools on the one campus. Even that example that we all think of, UCD- is still split and spills into 4 locations (not counting its associations with other institutions on whose behalf it makes some awards- not unlike the relationship Trinity has with some bodies).

    I don't see why a university has to be wholly located at Location A, and Location A, alone?


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    #51
    mikemac1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 12,395 ✭✭✭✭mikemac1


    Any students remember queuing for two hours on a Wednesday afternoon for the Galway Advertiser accommodation list?

    The newspaper was free on a Thursday but they milked money out of house hunters as you have to pay for the list if you wanted it a day early.

    Queues outside the office and then a mad scramble making calls outside the office. No smartphones or daft.ie I tell ya!

    Bad times :pac:


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