Beyond Cost-Rental: Can Co-Housing (Baugruppen) Work for Ireland’s Middle Class?

Ireland’s housing crisis has increasingly exposed a growing gap for middle-income households — particularly younger people — who earn too much to qualify for social housing but remain locked out of home ownership and burdened by an insecure private rental market. While recent policy responses have looked to Vienna’s internationally referenced housing system for inspiration, their translation into the Irish context has been partial and limited to small-scale initiatives such as cost rental, which at present is often too expensive for the very group it aims to support.

This paper asks whether emerging Viennese models such as resident-led co-housing initiatives (Baugruppen) could offer a viable alternative for Ireland, contributing to a more balanced, inclusive, and durable housing landscape. It explores what makes different types of co-housing work, their limits, and what their lessons might mean for Ireland’s squeezed middle.