Thousands of approved homes in Cork remain unbuilt; calls for reform of planning

City and county council officials are calling out for a reform of the planning system, that would place an emphasis on the ability of applicants to deliver once planning is granted, because thousands of approved homes are still unbuilt.

Michael Lynch, director of strategic and economic development with Cork County Council, has said that for development projects such as housing, “there is no shortage of appropriately zoned land, there’s no shortage of granted planning permission, but development isn’t taking place”.

Speaking at the Construction Industry Federation’s Southern Construct Summit and Exhibition 2022, he added: “In the 10 years to 2021, there were 330,000 houses consented in the country: 33,000 a year, roughly. About 37% of those were built. If you take out the one-offs, only 29.5% of those were built.”

Mr Lynch said that there is a need for a new planning system, and that capacity to deliver should be part of the assessment.

“Otherwise, we’re employing people to deal with planning applications that will never be delivered; all we’re doing is putting the value in the land… The process is just feeding the process, there’s no output,” Mr Lynch said.

Fearghal Reidy, director of services with Cork City Council, agreed that ability to deliver should be assessed under a revised planning system, as thousands of apartments approved by the city council’s planning department are still yet to be built.

“The local authority has zoned land, provided the infrastructure, approved the planning for in the order of 5,000 to 6000 units that are still to be built,” Mr Reidy said.

“A delivery assessment [in the planning process] is essential, because that’s ultimately where we need to be in delivering homes for people,” he added.

Addressing the construction conference in Páirc Ui Chaoimh on Thursday, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Michael McGrath, said an overhaul of national planning legislation is “nearing completion”.

“The review of the planning legislation called by the Attorney General is nearing completion,” Mr McGrath said. “it will lead to a new, consolidated planning bill, which will be brought to government in the coming weeks.”

He said the new consolidated planning laws will reduce the legal risk of judicial reviews, and give the power of planning decisions back to local authorities, rather than the courts.

“It’s an issue that we believe a comprehensive, new, planning consolidated bill will address, significantly reducing legal risk, and also ensuring a greater degree of compliance with EU law, which is a very complex area, in terms of its interaction with the planning system,” Mr McGrath said.

“This will embed all of that in one, integrated piece of legislation, and is a very, very important piece of work.”