Restrictive planning policies and lack of infrastructure issues for housing in Tipperary

At a special council meeting in Clonmel Municipal District on Monday November 11 regarding housing in the region, the Construction Industry Federation gave a presentation regarding housing statistics in Tipperary.

The presentation started by outlining the statistics and challenges with private house building in the region. Housing commencements in Tipperary that reached completion increased by 60% from September 2023 to September 2024.

In the first half of this year there was a 13% increase in new dwellings completed by the Local Authority when compared with the previous half of the year earlier.

READ NEXT: Suspended sentence for Tipperary man who led his victim on ‘very merry dance’

The CIF spoke about Government initiatives like the First Home Scheme and the Help to Buy Scheme and also looked at barriers facing the construction sector when building these types of homes.

LAND AVAILABILITY
The availability of serviced and serviceable zoned land is one barrier the CIF identified facing the industry at the moment.

VIABILITY
One large barrier the construction industry faces is viability. Costs of building houses are less in Tipperary than in neighbouring counties and this is one reason why developers are not building as much in Tipperary and are instead choosing to build in other counties.

For a construction company to get funding their plan must be 10-15% viable on the outset. This is hard to do with recent rising costs, says the CIF.

PLANNING
Restrictive planning policies like the compact growth guidelines and sustainable drainage policies are also a barrier the construction industry faces when building housing for these government schemes.

INFRASTRUCTURE
The CIF said that a lack of infrastructure is also an issue for construction when it comes to building housing estates. Uisce Éireann simply doesn't have the capacity in some areas and this stops the planning process of new homes in its tracks. The same can be said for ESB capacity in certain areas around Tipperary. Without the relevant infrastructure, plans are not able to be approved by the council.

The average cost of delivering a three bed house in Tipperary is €371,000, which is up from €285,000-€365,000 in 2022.

In conclusion, this presentation made by the CIF identified measures that the local authorities could make to help reduce barriers for the construction industry, and ultimately help meet the housing needs of Tipperary.

Streamlining the planning process would really speed things up and ensure there are no unnecessary steps holding back the delivery of new homes.

Finally the CIF suggests that local authorities ensure that more infrastructure is provided to service sites to ensure the planning stages get the go ahead.

READ NEXT: New Irish Civil War film to be shown in Tipperary this month