Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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153. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if he will outline the principal changes to apartment design standards set out in the Guidelines for Planning Authorities published in December 2022; and if this set of guidelines fully supersedes the two previous sets of guidelines published in 2018 and 2020. [3593/23]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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Greater availability and choice of well-located apartment development, together with enhanced affordability and related supports, will assist in encouraging a move towards apartment living. This forms part of the range of housing solutions being progressed further to Housing for All, and is essential in ensuring that Ireland’s urban areas can develop sustainably in accordance with the National Planning Framework.

On being appointed Minister in 2020, I undertook a review of co-living development as provided for in the 2018 apartment guidelines document, under the ‘shared accommodation’ heading. I concluded that given the scale, location and potential impact of co-living development permitted at that stage, that there were sufficient shared accommodation/co-living units either permitted or subject to consideration within the planning system. Similarly, given the success of measures to generate ‘Build-To-Rent’ (BTR) accommodation and in particular the pipeline of extant permissions, I concluded in 2022 that there is no longer a planning rationale to retain BTR as a distinct development type to which more flexible design standards than other apartment types may be applied.

The principal purpose of the amended Guidelines, which took effect from the 22nd of December 2022, is therefore to remove the separate planning application category whereby BTR may be identified as a separate development type, with specific design standards. Subject to a transitional provision for proposals in the planning system prior to publication of the updated Guidelines, the amended set of guidelines now supersede the previous two versions.