Developers who currently have planning permission for apartments will not have to submit a fresh planning application to change their plans in line with new apartment standards.
New design standards reducing the minimum size of apartments were issued by Minister for Housing James Browne on Tuesday in an effort to “get apartment-building moving”.
Permission has been granted for 57,000 apartments in Dublin alone, but work has yet to begin.
Concerns had been raised that the change to standards would result in further delays to building, as developers would have to resubmit planning applications to benefit from them.
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However, the Department of Housing said in a statement that the Minister has received government approval to bring forward amendments to the Planning and Development Amendment Bill (2025) to enable a development scheme which has planning permission, but has not been commenced, to be altered without the need for a new application.
It is understood these developments will have to submit revised drawings. However, their amendments will be expedited through the planning system and will be automatically granted on a “permitted alteration” basis and will not be subject to an entirely new planning process.
The changes to the apartment standards have been criticised by Opposition politicians and housing groups, who say Dublin city is at risk of becoming a “cultural wasteland” full of “small, dark” homes.
Under the plan, the minimum size of a studio apartment will be reduced to 32sq m from 37sq m.
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There will also be no restrictions on the specific mix of units within a development.
Previously the number of one-bedroom apartments or studios within any apartment scheme was restricted to 50 per cent, with no more than 25 per cent of the entire scheme allowed to be studios.
Apartment complexes will also have fewer windows under the plans, with 25 per cent of units having to be “dual aspect” in future, compared to 33 per cent of apartments in urban areas and 50 per cent in suburban areas under previous rules.
A dual-aspect dwelling is defined as one with openable windows on two external walls, which may be either on opposite or on adjacent sides of a dwelling where the external walls wrap around the corner of a building.
There will be no limit on the number of units using one lift. Previously, the number of units that could be provided per lift core was limited to a maximum of 12.
The guidelines also note the provision of communal, community and cultural facilities within apartment schemes will only be required in specific locations and not in every individual scheme.
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In a statement, Mr Browne said he was taking these actions to “ensure apartments are viable to build”.
“The changes being made, when compared to the previous guidelines, will likely result in some cases in an average of €50,000 and up to €100,000 cost reduction per unit and get will get apartment building moving,” he said.
This figure of €50,000-€100,000 saving for each flat unit comes from discussions between the department and the Land Development Agency (LDA), which is the State’s affordable housing delivery body and has delivered 1,100 apartments to date.
Work done by quantity surveyors within the LDA showed that when all of these measures were combined they could result in these savings per home, department sources said.
The department also believes these apartment sizes are in line with European norms, though it has not commissioned any specific research around this.
Sources there said that while it was difficult to find a like-for-like comparison across Europe, it looked at standards in the UK and Denmark as guidelines.
