Understanding the role of Building Regulation costs in the Irish housing crisis

Brunton, Alan

Abstract

This thesis examines the proportional impact that building regulation costs have on house
construction costs in Ireland and considers how they affect development viability, purchaser
affordability and housing supply in the housing market. It also considers whether their impact can be
regarded as a significant contributing factor to the Irish housing crisis.
Through a literature review connecting the research issue with broader contexts and theories on
housing provision, the study identifies issues such as planning system failures, poor land
management, infrastructure deficits and credit access challenges, as the most widely considered
factors contributing to the Irish housing crisis. It also establishes that building regulation costs are
not considered to be one of the main contributing factors.
Pragmatism and pluralism are identified as the main philosophical positions from which to justify a
tailored multi method data collection and analysis approach, whereby building regulations data,
collected in a documents contents analysis is combined with cost data obtained from an instrumental
case study of a recently completed housing development project. The combined data is analysed to
identify the proportional cost of building regulations contained within the overall cost to construct
and develop a typical estate built house.
The research contributes to knowledge, by providing insights to practitioners, academics and
industry observers, who are struggling to understand why it is more difficult to deliver viable and
affordable housing today than in previous years. This is achieved through findings which identify
that since building regulations were first introduced in Ireland in 1991, building regulations costs
have been responsible for increasing the cost to ‘construct and develop’ the case study house, by
‘46% and 33%’ respectively. The findings also illustrates the gradual way in which building
regulations costs have accumulated over time and demonstrates how viability and affordability are
seriously challenged by their effect.

Citation

Brunton, A. (2023). Understanding the role of Building Regulation costs in the Irish housing crisis. (Thesis). University of Salford

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Dec 12, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 9, 2024
• Award Date: Dec 8, 2023