Only four homes were built per 1,000 people in Dublin last year, a new study has revealed.
Experts have slammed the National Planning Framework (NPF) saying it will "strangle Dublin's housing supply". The document, which has been described as "fundamentally flawed", determines how Ireland will develop over the long-term out to 2040.
A study by property advisor Savills Ireland revealed that there has been a large reduction of zoned residential land available for development within the Greater Dublin Area (Dublin, Meath, Kildare, Wicklow), which would have had the capacity to accommodate over 100,000 units. This is also equivalent to 10 years of housing supply, according to the firm's Residential Land Supply Study 2022.
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John Ring, Director of Research at Savills Ireland said: "After a lost decade of housing delivery, we are producing just four homes per 1,000 people in Dublin, less than half of the nine per 1,000 recorded going back twenty-five years ago and just a quarter of the output of 2006.
"Similarly, in the Greater Dublin Area, we are producing seven homes per 1,000 compared to 12 per 1,000 people in 1996 and 23 in 2006. We need to implement stretch targets at this time to reflect the urgency of the situation, rather than limiting our ambitions to goals that are likely to fail.”
The firm went on to say that the population projection and forecasting models were "flawed". Mr Ring said that the current projection envisages a 20% and 25% growth by 2024 for Dublin City compared to a 50% growth for cities of Cork, Limerick, Galway, and Waterford.
He added: "Basing planning on these growth patterns is flawed because they are unlikely to come to fruition. Incoming foreign direct investment will not consult the goals of the NPF when deciding if and where to locate in Ireland. The majority will continue to go to Dublin where the talent pool is deepest."
Furthermore, Savills stated that the quantum of land zoned for residential development contained within the various development plans is too little to realistically deliver the required housing, even at the low targets prescribed by the HNDAs.
A total of 40% of the delivery of new homes must take place on brownfield sites, i.e. sites already within urban areas. But Savills believe that these sites are more expensive to develop due to logistical and environmental factors.
Mr Ring added: "We need to implement stretch targets at this time to reflect the urgency of the situation, rather than limiting our ambitions to goals that are likely to fail."
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