The all-in cost of developing a two-bedroom, single-storey unit of accommodation in a social housing scheme in Dublin city is close to €450,000, new official figures maintain.
The Department of Housing said the basic unit costs for new-build social housing schemes ranged from €235,800 in Co Roscommon to €449,500 in Dublin city.
The basic unit cost figures were circulated by the department to local authorities in May 2024. They are not usually released publicly.
The department said the basic unit cost of a single-storey, two-bedroom unit in Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown was €403,000 and €386,000 in South Dublin. The figure for Fingal was €361,200.
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It is understood the cost in Cork county was €302,900 and €351,400 in Cork City.
Last week a report by the State’s spending watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General, found that the projected cost of providing rapid-build accommodation for people fleeing the war in Ukraine had more than doubled since the project was first envisaged in 2022. It said the estimated cost of each modular unit had risen from €200,000 to potentially about €442,000 now. Under the Government plan, the vast bulk of the 600 or so rapid-build homes to be developed will be single-storey units.
Industry sources said the most interesting element to emerge from the Department of Housing basic unit costs was the difference of more than €200,000 in developing identical two-bedroom bungalows between Roscommon and Dublin city.
A similar pattern can be seen in a report by the Society of Chartered Surveyors Ireland published in December 2023. It looked at larger three-bedroom semidetached properties. It found the average cost of delivering a new three-bed semi in Ireland ranged from €354,000 in the northwest to €461,000 in the Greater Dublin Area. Nationally, the average cost of delivering a three-bed semi was €397,000.
The Department of Housing said the basic unit costs for new-build social housing schemes were provided periodically to each local authority “for use as a key benchmark for the development and costing of social housing designs at capital appraisal stage”.
“While not a record of actual delivery costs, basic unit costs are informed by department analysis of construction tender returns for social housing schemes.”
The department said the “all-in” figure included:
• Base build construction costs, inclusive of normal external/site development works and VAT;
• The addition of allowances for design team fees, utilities, site investigations, surveys, site purchase costs, public art, etc, as appropriate.
The basic unit costs were “representative of standard requirements, typically encountered on all new-build social housing schemes”. They “exclude abnormal costs, which are separately classified”.
“Abnormal costs are those which would be considered as project specific [ie not a typical construction cost]. For example, a standard housing scheme will include strip foundations and blockwork rising walls. If, however, existing ground conditions require the use of piled foundations and ground beams, the additional cost for using this type of foundation is considered an abnormal cost.”
The Department of Housing added the basic unit cost figures were “not published but rather provided to each local authority individually with the most recent being issued in May 2024”.
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