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Planning for houses down by one-fifth

There was an annual decrease of more than 28% in the total number of dwelling units approved in Q1 – down from 11,659 units in Q1 2023 to 8,387 units in Q1 2024.

CSO data shows that houses accounted for 58% of all dwelling units granted planning permission in Q1 this year, while apartments made up the remaining 42%.

In Q1, the number of houses granted planning permission fell by more than 20% when compared with Q1 2023, while apartment approvals declined by more than a third (-36.7%).

In Q1 there was an annual fall of more than 9% in the number of one-off houses receiving planning permission from 1,420 units in Q1 2023 to 1,288 units in Q1 2024.

There was an annual decline of almost 24% in the number of multi-development houses receiving planning permission in Q1 2024 compared with an annual increase of almost 54% in Q4 2023.

Across the four local authorities of Dublin, planning permission was granted for 2,003 apartments in Q1 2024, accounting for almost six in ten (57%) of all apartments granted planning permission in the State in the first three months of the year.

Decline

Between Q1 2023 and Q1 2024, there was an annual decline of 56.8% in apartment units approved in Dublin.

In Q1 2024, there was an annual decrease of 57% (5,608 to 2,388) in the total number of Strategic Housing Developments (SHD) dwelling units approved, of which the number of houses approved declined by 50.0%, compared with a fall of 61.2% in the number of apartments approved.