A strategy to make enough zoned land available in Dublin city for the construction of 12,000 homes annually has been approved by Dublin city councillors.
Last July, Minister for Housing James Browne issued new guidelines to all local authorities telling them to reopen their development plans and rezone significant additional lands for housing in an effort to tackle the housing crisis.
The guidelines directed local authorities to plan for a national “baseline housing growth requirement” of 55,000 per year, but also to zone enough for “an additional 50 per cent headroom”, Mr Browne said, “enabling zoning for a total of 83,000 units per annum”.
The guidelines set out annual housing growth requirements for each city and county council. Dublin City Council was set a new target of zoning enough land for the construction of 8,196 homes a year up to 2034.
RM Block
The council has already zoned enough land in its 2022-2028 development plan to meet this new target. In addition, the 50 per cent “headroom” required by the Minister will be met by the rezoning of the Dublin Industrial Estate in Glasnevin for up to 8,500 homes as well as industrial lands at Kylemore Road and Naas Road, west of Inchicore. These lands have capacity for up to 5,300 homes and are part of the “City Edge” project being developed with South Dublin County Council.
The first phases of these major industrial estate redevelopment projects, along with the lands already zoned, would provide sufficient zoned land for up to 12,294 homes annually in the coming years.
However, the development sector is building less than a third of this number annually. Builders completed just 3,355 houses and apartments in the city last year. In the first six months of this year, just 1,852 homes were built in the city.
There was, the council said, a significant number of “unactivated planning permissions” in the city. Planning permission is in place for 25,905 homes. Of these, 10,158 are under construction, but work has yet to start on 14,701.
Acting city planner Emer Uí Fhátharta on Thursday night told councillors there was an “urgent need to increase housing delivery” as a “social and economic imperative for the city”. While the council was zoning new lands it was also “important to ensure activation of existing shovel-ready planning permissions”.
There was a “strong pipeline” of planning permissions, she said, “but that pipeline suffers from a lack of activation” and “activating these permissions is a priority for us”.
Councillors approved the initiation of rezoning of the Dublin Industrial Estate lands, for the development of the new suburb Broombridge-Hamilton. The rezoning proposal will be available for public consultation for four weeks.
The council will initiate the rezoning of the City Edge/Kylemore lands by the end of the year, with these lands expected to be ready for redevelopment by the middle of 2026.
It will also begin a process next year of reviewing its already zoned lands in strategic development and regenerations areas (SDRAs). This includes the Docklands, Jamestown Industrial Estate lands in Finglas and the Belmayne/ Clongriffin area to identify “potential for an uplift in housing numbers” from 2030 onwards.
It will also review potential rezoning of other smaller pockets of industrial lands to accommodate housing development after 2032.
Separately, councillors agreed the report of the council’s urban redevelopment working group to tackle vacancy and dereliction in the city.
The approval of the report enables the council to establish a special purpose vehicle (SPV) to deliver on the aims of the Taskforce for Dublin, the €1 billion plan to revitalise the area around O’Connell Street published last October by then taoiseach Simon Harris.
It also allows the council to implement a pilot scheme to redevelop unused buildings in North Frederick Street and Middle Abbey Street for cost-rental homes for essential workers including gardaí, healthcare, public transport and council workers, as well as teachers and retail and hospitality staff.
