Dublin Housing Legal Challenges Drop 15% in Q1 2024, SHD Scheme End Cited
Legal challenges to Dublin housing projects decreased by 15 per cent in Q1 2024, with 2,876 homes facing judicial review. This decline is linked to the 2021 replacement of the controversial SHD scheme with the more accepted LRD system, despite new planning laws enacted in late 2024.
Legal challenges to housing projects in Dublin have significantly declined, with data from the 4Dublin Housing Supply Pipeline Task Force showing a 15 per cent year-on-year fall in homes facing legal challenges in the planning system during the first quarter of 2024.
At the start of 2024, 2,876 homes in Dublin, representing 6.2 per cent of unactivated planning permissions, faced judicial reviews. This is down from 3,384 homes in Q1 2023. Overall, 9,562 planned homes in Dublin were under judicial review at the beginning of 2024, accounting for 16.5 per cent of all unactivated permissions.
The Government enacted the 900-page Planning and Development Act 2024 in late 2024, introducing new limits on legal costs for environmental judicial reviews. However, the decline in challenges began before this law took effect.
Solicitor Fred Logue and McCann FitzGerald partner Brendan Slattery attribute the decline to the scrapping of the controversial Strategic Housing Development (SHD) scheme in 2021, which allowed developers to bypass county councils. It was replaced by the Large-Scale Residential Development (LRD) system, managed by local councils, which is more publicly accepted and respected by courts. Logue also noted improved county council development plans and more conservative developer applications.