The Passive House Association of Ireland welcome Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council’s adoption of their County Development Plan for 2016-2022, on Wednesday 17th February last, which mandates that all new buildings must be built to the Passive House standard or demonstrably equivalent approaches in terms of indoor air quality, energy performance, comfort and surface/interstitial condensation.
The motion, which was sponsored by Fine Gael Councillor Marie Baker, and which was worded by Passive House Association director, and Passive House Plus editor, Jeff Colley, was passed by a majority of 27-10, winning support from members of every political party.
“In this development plan, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown has set out the aim of becoming a carbon neutral county. While we must find ways to solve the vexing riddle of delivering massive emissions reductions from the existing building stock, new build is a much easier target. The council deserves enormous credit in mandating the passive house standard – which no less of an authority than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has identified as one of the key emissions reduction options for buildings. One part of Ireland is now a world-leader on sustainable building” said Jeff.
The Passive House Association of Ireland is confident that the legal basis for such a Passive House policy is strong and we welcome the opportunity to work with other local authorities to make real progress in the promotion of robust low energy building design throughout Ireland.
The county development plan is now published and is available at http://www.dlrcoco.ie/files/
