A new report from the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB) is calling for planning regulation changes to make major urban buildings adaptable — potentially turning future vacancy into much-needed homes. 

In a recent CIOB survey*, more than four fifths (81%) of people in Ireland and Northern Ireland said they are concerned about the current housing situation in the cities they live in, and more than half (52%) say they feel stuck in their current home due to a lack of alternative options. 

Nearly two thirds of respondents (64%) said they do not believe new construction is building what their city needs, and over half (52.5%) said their area has an issue with a surplus of offices. 

This chimes with the national level data cited in the CIOB report, ‘Building Adaptably: How the construction sector can future proof Irish cities’, which highlights how commercial vacancy reached its highest ever level in 2024. 

Since the Covid-19 pandemic, it is estimated 58% of office workers now spend more time away from the office than they do in it, leading to many companies downsizing their premises. Ireland’s commercial vacancy rate stood at 14.5% in 2024, with Dublin having the highest rate of any major European city. However, many of those vacant buildings are unsuitable for conversion to homes due to low ceilings, load-bearing internal walls and heating, ventilation and power systems that aren’t appropriate for residential properties or make changing the layout of the inside of the building difficult.  

CIOB’s report says if adaptability requirements had been in place when they were first built, the current mismatch of commercial versus residential real estate may not exist. It adds building adaptability is also environmentally sustainable as it avoids the need to demolish and rebuild, which reduces the embodied carbon footprint of the construction sector. 

Joseph Kilroy, CIOB policy and public affairs manager for Ireland, said: “The clear concerns amongst Irish and Northern Irish people over the lack of housing options in the very places where office vacancy rates are highest, suggests a significant failure of the speculative building model to meet real demand. More than 80% have real concerns about the housing situation so it’s high time changes in how we build are made.  

“In our view, the best way to achieve that change is to introduce adaptability metrics into the planning permission decision-making process. London, Paris and Amsterdam have each implemented such policies, thereby creating a potential new stream of future housing supply. The reforms we are suggesting would enable buildings to evolve alongside the societies they serve, converting underused assets into homes and communities rather than waste.” 

The key recommendations in CIOB’s report are: 

• Introduce a mandatory requirement for adaptability assessments at the planning stage to ensure new developments are designed with future change in mind
• Require planning applications for large-scale commercial or residential projects to include renovation and conversion scenarios as part of their design proposals
• Offer tangible incentives, such as expedited planning approval to developers who adopt innovative, future-ready construction methods
• Embed design-for-adaptability criteria into public land sales and procurement contracts to ensure publicly funded or facilitated developments are future-proofed for changing uses. 
   

Dr Michael Byrne, Lecturer at the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice, UCD, said: “The scale, depth and complexity of the housing challenge has become increasingly obvious over recent years. For some time now, it has been clear that the Irish housing system struggles to deliver adequate housing supply and that the wider real estate sector, in particular office space, is highly volatile. We also know that the role of housing in meeting our climate responsibilities is ‘the elephant in the room’ when it comes to housing policy debate. This report puts forward a compelling case for adaptability as a key concept and practice that simultaneously addresses all these concerns. The report provides practical recommendations that have the potential to increase the supply of housing, enable the housing system and built environment to adapt to social conditions, and reduce the housing system’s carbon footprint.” 

The full CIOB report can be downloaded here Building Adaptably: How the construction sector can future proof Irish cities | CIOB