Studio apartments on the way with new planning rules
In June 2015, Alan Kelly the Minister for the Environment, sent a small warning to Dublin City Council, telling it not to put any “unreasonable or excessive” requirements in the city development plan which could damage the commercial viability of housing.
Just the next month in July, the council published its proposals for changes to the apartment standards for the development plan due to come into force at the end of 2016. This new category would be known as a studio, reducing the numbers of dual-aspect apartments, but retaining the overall size of apartments.
The City Council didn’t exactly get the message, therefore the Minister Alan Kelly, and his department decided to simply give them easier instructions in the form of the “Planning Guidelines on Design Standards for New Apartments”. These are now mandatory and it reduced the minimum size of apartments which could be built in Dublin city by 10-20% per cent.