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Planning permits for apartments have surpassed those for homes for the first time in the country’s history, according to the first report from the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR).
Last year 40,252 residential units were granted nationwide, with apartments accounting for 51% of the total.
The OPR report, which was created to oversee the planning process, states that the apartments are “key to sustainable urban development.”
He said the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) process was a factor in the increase as it allows large-scale developments to bypass local authorities and go directly to An Bord Pleanála.
Relaxing the rules on apartments, which included higher height and density, was another factor he claimed.
In Dublin, 86% of all residential units that received the go-ahead last year were for apartments compared to just 24% in Cork.
However, the report expressed concern that most of the housing construction in the eastern part of the country was taking place in commuter areas outside of Dublin’s four local authority areas.
55% of all homes granted permits in the region were in the four counties of Kildare, Louth, Meath and Wicklow.
The report stated that this “poses a challenge to the government’s planning goals to address the expansion of major urban areas.”
The office reviewed 25 development plans drawn up by local authorities with 31 recommendations and 16 observations on issues including the best implementation of planning guidelines related to flood risk and national roads.
Planning regulator Niall Cussen said that proper and effective planning is needed now more than ever to help the national recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said: “The planning process will play a central role in how our cities, towns and villages develop. This is because over the next six years the OPR will evaluate about 200 draft plans from across the country to measure how well align with existing planning policy. “
The report indicated that 32,314 valid planning requests were made last year and of those that were decided, 90% were approved.
There was an average of 16% that was considered invalid with a percentage ranging from 4% to 29% among planning authorities.
Of the applications, 44.5% were in the Eastern Midlands region assembly area, 37% were in the South region assembly area, and 19% were in the Northwest region assembly area.
There were 91 complaints from members of the public, but none were found to be within the purview of the OPR, as they related to individual planning cases rather than systemic issues.
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