DUBLIN (Reuters) -The Irish government announced plans on Tuesday to reduce minimum apartment sizes and requirements for open space and communal facilities in a bid to reverse last year’s 24% fall in apartment building.
The centre-right coalition government says its top priority is handling a housing crisis, but homebuilding stalled last year at 30,000 units, far below its target of an average of 50,000 new homes a year to 2030.
“We are taking decisive action, without compromising on any essential regulations, to ensure apartments are viable to build,” housing minister James Browne said in a statement in which he also promised to “engage every mechanism available” to boost supply.
The new guidelines “will likely result in some cases” in an average cost reduction of 50,000-100,000 euros ($58,580-$117,160) per unit, Browne said.
Opposition parties criticised the changes, which will also reduce requirements for dual-aspect and larger apartments, saying they would result in substandard living conditions and that similar moves in 2018 failed to reduce apartment costs.
Property developers have said rent controls, as well as higher interest rates, have choked the supply of new rental homes. The government tweaked its rent-control system in June to encourage development.
($1 = 0.8535 euros)
(Writing by Conor Humphries; Editing by Sachin Ravikumar)
