‘Time to halt dominance of Build-to-Rent and right the wrongs of Fine Gael housing policy’, says Dublin City Councillor

Labour Councillor Darragh Moriarty says the dominance of build-to-rent apartment developments in Dublin City ‘must be stopped.’

Councillor Moriarty, who represents most of the Dublin 8 area, was responding to concerns raised by the Office of the Planning Regulator, that its proposals to curtail the dominance of Build-to-Rent (BTR) were not in accordance with national planning guidelines as set out by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage.

“Since Fine Gael’s Ministerial Guidelines came into effect in 2018, the saturation of Build-to-Rent has been destroying communities all over Dublin, including my own area of Dublin 8,” he said.

“The dominance of BTR has been steadily rising since the guidelines were introduced, accounting for almost 82% of residential planning applications permitted or pending in 2020 in the DCC area.

“The homes delivered through these schemes exemplify the very worst of our failed approach to tackling our housing crisis – a race to the bottom in terms of standards, packing as many units as possible into developments with no storage space, no balconies and no regard for the people that will live in these homes.”

Responding to repeated concerns raised about the future long-term viability of these developments, City Council proposed a series of robust measures to tackle the overdominance of BTR in the city, including a presumption against granting permission to BTR developments smaller than 100 units and more importantly, a requirement that any scheme including BTR would have to include a minimum of 40% build-to-sell standard apartments.

“We have to recognise that in raising its concerns, the Office of the Planning Regulator is just doing the job it was set up to do, i.e. to try ensure local authority development plans are in line with national policy,” Cllr. Moriarty said.

“But when the national policy is so clearly and demonstrably getting it wrong, local authorities must call that out and do what is in the best interests of the people they serve.”

“I have no doubt that Councillors will fully back and support the strong stance taken by the City Planners.

“Indeed, it’s not very often you’ll get Councillors jumping to agree with Owen Keegan, but in this instance, he’s absolutely correct.

“It will be interesting to see how Councillors of government parties, Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Greens, react to potential conflict between the state’s largest local authority and central government.

“I would urge them to accept the failure of Build-to-Rent in tackling our housing crisis and to support Dublin City Council, which I’m sure will be proven to be on the right side of this issue.”