The Government has issued new Planning Standard guidelines aimed at striking a balance between ensuring that apartment development meets the needs of society in terms of standards and quality, while promoting an increased level of delivery overall.
The new measures, announced on Tuesday by Minister for Housing James Browne and Minister of State with responsibility for Planning, John Cummins, will see changes to minimum sizes, will allow for the reduced provision of private open spaces and will preclude local authorities from requiring communal, community and cultural facilities as mandatory for individual apartment schemes.
The ‘Planning Design Standards for Apartments, Guidelines for Planning Authorities (2025)’ set out revised standards for apartment development in relation to matters including apartment mix; internal space standards for different types of apartments; dual aspect ratios; floor to ceiling heights; stair/lift core ratios; storage spaces; and amenity spaces including balconies/patios.
Issuing the guidelines, Minister Browne said the Government was "taking decisive action, without compromising on any essential regulations, to ensure apartments are viable to build".
"We are acting in response to a housing crisis," he said.
"There are blockages to apartment building in the regulations we have, we can see that in the slowdown in our much-needed pipeline of apartments."
Mr Browne said that changes "compare favourably with European norms" and "will likely result in some cases in an average of €50k and up to €100k cost reduction per unit.”
He said that the supply of apartments was critical to meeting housing needed and that these changes would "get apartment building moving ... without compromising on disability, fire regulations, or environmental requirements."
Minister Browne has also received Government approval to bring forward amendments to the Planning and Development Amendment Bill (2025) to enable a development schemes which currently benefit from planning permission but have not been commenced to be altered without the need for a new planning application.
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