Most new Dublin homes will be apartments, figures show

More than 1,000 homes are currently under construction in Dublin, three-quarters of which are apartments, according to new figures from Dublin City Council.

Apartments account for 788 of the 1,077 homes being built in estates – groups of more than 10 units – on 22 sites across the city.

The rate of apartment construction has increased fourfold over the last year, the council’s record of “active sites” shows.

The figures come shortly after the publication of apartment sales prices which showed only 16 newly constructed apartments were available to buy in Dublin city in just two developments.

Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly last December introduced new mandatory minimum standards for apartments, blaming the high requirements of some local authorities for the low levels of construction.

However, new details on rates of construction indicate a significant pick-up in the numbers of apartments being built in Dublin city in 2015.

Construction started on 244 homes on estates in 2014, just 40 of which were apartments.

Last year the overall figure rose to 620 homes, and while the number of houses being built more than doubled to 445, the number of apartments quadrupled to 165.

All the apartments were built to the city council’s development-plan standards which set the minimum size of one-bed units at 55sq m, with the requirements for two-bed apartments being 90sq m and three-beds being 100sq m.

Building requirements

The new national standards set one-bed apartments at 45sq m, two-bed apartments at 73sq m and three-bed apartments at 90sq m.

The 1,077 homes being built in the Dublin City Council area include the units on which construction started in 2014 and 2015, as well as housing schemes which developers started in previous years and have now resumed after stalling for some years.

Construction is fairly evenly divided north and south of the river Liffey, with 100 more homes being built on the northside – a total of 588 compared to 489 on the southside.

But almost all the homes being built in the south of the city (414) are apartments, whereas on the northside houses account for more than half the homes under construction.

Northside activity

A greater number of sites are active on the north side with building ongoing on 15 sites, compared to the south side where eight sites are active.

However, apart from one site, Hampton Wood Square, in Poppintree, where 128 apartments are being built, most of the northside sites are small in scale.

On the south of the city, two large sites account for more than half of homes under way.

At Clancy Quay, 163 homes, more than 100 of which are apartments, are being built, and in Mount Argus, Harold’s Cross, work has started on 167 apartments.