Legal challenges to housing projects in Dublin have declined significantly in recent years, data from a State-established taskforce has shown.Research produced by the 4Dublin Housing Supply Pipeline Task Force, a State group established to track residential building, said the number of homes in Dublin’s planning system faced with a legal challenge fell 15 per cent year on year in the first quarter of the year.It said there were 2,876 homes facing judicial reviews at the beginning of this year in Dublin, which represented 6.2 per cent of unactivated planning permissions for new houses and apartments.At the beginning of 2024, a total of 9,562 homes planned in Dublin were being judicially reviewed, which accounted for 16.5 per cent of all unactivated permissions to build. In the first quarter of last year, 3,384 homes in Dublin faced a judicial review.The Government has invested significant resources in recent years into drafting new planning laws to address the number of legal challenges to housing and infrastructure projects.The Planning and Development Act 2024, a 900-page document, was signed into law in late 2024. New limits came into effect this year on the legal costs that can be recouped by those who take judicial reviews on environmental grounds.[ Irish house price inflation weakens to slowest rate in more than two yearsOpens in new window ]The measure was enacted in a bid to curtail legal challenges to housing, but data has shown the number of judicial reviews had sharply declined before the new law took effect.Two legal professionals who specialise in judicial reviews of planning cases told The Irish Times the decline in judicial reviews was also occurring beyond Dublin.Will a Middle East peace deal make any difference to inflation? Listen | 32:03Solicitor Fred Logue, a specialist in environmental and planning law, said the decline in legal challenges could be linked to the wind down of the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) scheme.The SHD system, introduced in 2016, was a controversial fast-track planning process that allowed property developers to circumvent county councils when applying to build large residential projects. Darragh O’Brien, then minister for housing, scrapped the SHD system in 2021 after a large number of units approved through the scheme faced legal challenges and High Court judges repeatedly ruled to quash planning permissions granted under the SHD scheme. He replaced the system with the new Large-Scale Residential Development (LRD) system, which is managed by local county councils and now processes applications for large projects.“The LRD system is much better and has more public acceptance compared to the old SHD system,” Logue said.He said the updates to county council development plans in recent years had also cleared up what type of development and what densities were permissible, leaving fewer avenues for legal challenges.“Developers are also more conservative in their applications and the planning board, in fairness to them, is making much improved decisions.” McCann FitzGerald partner Brendan Slattery, who also specialises in planning law, said residential planning permissions were being less frequently challenged because the “LRD system is more respected by members of public and courts”. “An Coimisiún Pleanála is doing better work and, as a consequence, when people go to a lawyer looking to challenge they’re being told that it is more difficult to challenge than it was before,” he said. “We’re seeing this across all different sectors, including wind farms, solar projects and infrastructure applications.”