Downward annual trend in Kildare house permissions
Big rise in apartment go aheads
The number of residences being built in Kildare over the next couple of years is likely to drop if new figures on planning applications are any indication.
There was a 34 drop in the number of units - houses or apartments - between 2018 and 2019, according to recent Planning Permission figures from the Central Statistics Office.
Granting a permission does not mean a residence will be built at all or very soon. But it gives an idea of the immediate potential for new homes.
Permission was granted for 3,225 residences in 2018, compared to 2,143 in 2019, a fall of 1,082 or 34%.
Nationally permission for 40,252 was granted, a rise of 38%.
There were more apartment units granted permission (20,582) than house permissions (19,670), with 51% of all residence permissions being for apartments, up from 9,138 in 2018.
The majority of the Kildare residences in 2019 were houses, 2,3549, but the number of apartments, at 576, represented almost 27% of the total.
The number of apartment permissions also fell from 885 to 576, a drop of 35%.
Most of the houses in 2019 are for multihouse developments while 161 were for one off houses, a 15% from the 189 granted permission in the county in 2018.
One off houses represented 8% of all permissions in 2019, compared to 6% in 2018.
Nationally, one off houses permissions increased 2.6% from 5481 to 5,622, representing 14% of all houses permissions in 2019, down from 19% in 2018.