The total number of planning permissions granted for all dwelling units was up by 21.5 per cent in the first quarter, while the number of one-off houses granted permission was at its highest since 2009, new data from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) shows.
The number of dwellings granted planning permission was 8,463, of which 4,687 were houses and 3,776 were apartments. That represented an increase of 51.7 per cent in houses compared with the same period last year, while apartments decreased by 2.5 per cent.
More houses than apartments were granted planning permission for the first time since the second quarter of 2019.
Some 2,606 multi-development houses and 2,081 one-off houses were granted planning. A total of 7,742 planning permissions were granted for all developments. This compares with 7,511 permissions in the same period of 2021, an annual increase of 3.1 per cent.
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Of these, 2,430 were for new construction dwellings, 2,066 for other constructions, 1,981 for extensions and 1,265 for alterations and conversions.
The 2,430 new construction permissions consisted of 2,081 approvals for one-off houses, 200 for apartments, 132 for multi-development houses and 17 for communal dwellings.
There were annual increases of 23.8 per cent in planning permissions granted for new construction dwellings and 1.7 per cent for other constructions. During the same period there were decreases in approvals for extensions (-9.6 per cent) and alterations and conversions (-4.5 per cent).
The region with the highest proportion of apartment units granted approval at 48.3 per cent was Dublin with 1,824 apartments, followed by the mid-east (24.6 per cent) with 929 approvals, and the southwest (9.2 per cent) with 349 approvals.
The county with the highest proportion of houses granted planning was Cork at 14.6 per cent with 683 houses, followed by Kilkenny (6.4 per cent) with 300 houses, and Limerick at 6.2 per cent, with 292 houses. Leitrim with 18 houses accounted for the lowest proportion.
The Strategic Housing Development (SHD) process is where applications for developments of at least 100 residential units or 200-plus student bed spaces can be made directly to An Bord Pleanála. In the current quarter the number of SHD apartment units approved fell by 25.1 per cent when compared with the same period last year, while the number of SHD housing units approved rose by 281 per cent.
SHD apartment units accounted for 55.1 per cent of all apartment units granted planning permission, with standard applications accounting for the remaining 44.9 per cent.
In the same period 2,606 multi-development housing units were granted planning permission, of which 556 (21.3 per cent) were SHD applications and 2,050 (78.7 per cent) were standard applications.
