A public consultation has been launched by Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy on draft Urban Development and Building Heights Guidelines for Planning Authorities.

The guidelines, when formally adopted later this Autumn, set out new and updated national planning policy on building heights in relation to urban areas, elaborating on the strategic policy framework set out in Project Ireland 2040 and the National Planning Framework.

In addition, they are part of a suite of integrated measures and policy shifts to break the current patterns and development trends for Irish cities and towns, helping to create more compact and integrated communities.

Overall, the guidelines will;

• Elaborate on key policies outlined in the National Planning Framework, in particular National Policy Objective 13, which identifies building height as an important measure for urban areas to deliver and achieve compact growth;

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• Outline wider and strategic policy considerations and a performance criteria that planning authorities should apply alongside their statutory development plans in assessing proposals for taller buildings; and

• Support the accommodation of anticipated population growth and their development needs, whether for housing, employment or other purposes, by building up and consolidating the development of our existing urban areas.

A copy of the draft guidelines can be downloaded from the Department's website at www.housing.gov.ie or inspected at the Department's headquarters at the Custom House, Dublin 1, between 9am and 5pm, from 09 August up to and including 24 September.

Welcoming the guidance's publication, Minister Murphy highlighted the need for the guidelines "to put into practice key strategic objectives contained in the National Planning Framework about securing better and more compact forms of future development, for the benefit of our economy, our environment and most of all, our citizens".

"These guidelines are intended to set a new and more responsive policy and regulatory framework for planning the growth and development of our cities and towns upwards, rather than outwards," he said.

"Publication of these draft Guidelines is very timely, following on from the whole-of-Government approach in seeking to harness the strategic objectives of the National Planning Framework and the long-term capital investment framework under the 10-year National Development Plan to shift away from the unsustainable 'business as usual' development patterns and create a more adaptive and forward-looking vision and to prioritise and coordinate State investment to implement that Framework."

(LM/CM)