The problem: the potential of Irish towns and cities is being limited by restrictions on the adaptability of our built environment

  • Our towns and cities are frozen in the 20th century (and often before that), unable to adapt to our housing and climate challenges.
  • Historically, cities around the world have gradually densified by a combination of simple rules and powerful incentives.
  • When the need for living space in the city grew, property owners would respond by intensifying the use of their plots. In most of pre-war Europe, there was a simple set of rules governing this process, enabling the built environment to adapt to a changing environment.
  • Planning policies make the steady intensification of plots in central areas extremely difficult. As a result, much of our built environment is frozen in time, unable to adapt to Ireland’s changing needs.

Progress Ireland’s solution: allowing communities to opt into greater levels of density

  • Street plan development zones (SPZs) are designed to contribute to relieving the housing shortage by giving communities the power to develop where they choose to and share in the benefits when they do. They present an opportunity to deliver additional homes by enhancing, rather than undermining, local control. 
  • Our modelling suggests that creating a system of SPZs could deliver 150,000 new homes.  
  • The system would work as follows:

Why should Ireland adopt an SPZ policy?

  • Street plans have the potential to be a widely popular measure which delivers homes in existing areas of urban or suburban development, in cities and towns across the country.
  • By providing an additional means for right-sizing, street plans will facilitate ageing in place with dignity and independence. Street plans will empower communities to adapt to their changing demographic needs.
  • Street plans have the potential to deliver additional homes for people in existing serviced areas. By providing additional streams of supply, the policy would contribute to meeting the government challenging housing targets with appropriate developments of scale in existing communities. 
  • The policy is highly democratic, providing communities with a direct role in shaping the future of their particular area. 
  • Similar policies have successfully delivered housing internationally in London, Seoul, Vancouver, Tel Aviv, and Houston. New Zealand’s current government plans to introduce a similar policy during its’ term. 
  • The policy is very popular in Ireland, with dozens of Irish experts, academics, business people, and activists endorsing a very similar policy when it was first introduced by the Better Planning Alliance. 
  • By providing incentives for gentle infill and brownfield development, street plans provide a policy instrument to help meet address climate change by adaptively reusing existing buildings to confront our current challenges. 
  • By incentivising gentle infill, residents can become champions of new development, removing the much discussed opposition between incumbents and newcomers, and creating a win-win environment.