PLANNING PERMISSION WAS granted for 1,604 houses and apartments in the first three months of the year – a decrease of 704 on the same period last year.
This represents a 30.5% drop on January-March 2013, when 2,308 dwellings were granted permission.
Permission was granted for 1,446 houses in the first quarter of 2014, compared to 1,860 in the first quarter of 2013, a decrease of 22.3%.
Planning permissions for apartments fared even worse. Some 158 applications were granted nationally, compared with 448 units in January – March 2013, a decrease of 64.7%.
Figures released from the Central Statistics Office today also show that 386 new units were approved in Dublin (244 in the city), with just 26 given the green light in Cork city and 16 in Galway city.
One-off houses accounted for almost half (48.3%) of all new dwelling units granted permission.
The total number of planning permissions granted for all developments (including extensions and alterations) in the first quarter was 3,833. This figure is up from 3,275 in the first quarter of 2013, an increase of 17%.
In the same period in 2007 this figure stood at 62,367.
The total floor area planned in the successful applications was 744,000 square meters. Of this, 45% was for new dwellings, 30.8% for other new construction and 24.2% for extensions. The total floor area planned decreased by 20% in comparison with the same quarter in 2013.
Planning permissions for new buildings for agricultural purposes decreased from 157 in the first quarter of 2013 to 93 in the same period this year.
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