Housing Schemes

Tuesday, 17 May 2022

Questions (309)

Eoin Ó Broin

Question:

309. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the breakdown of all affordable housing developments funded by his Department via AHF, CREL, the LDA or delivered via Part V by local authority area in tabular form; and the number of affordable homes in each scheme. [24580/22]

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Written answers

Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Darragh O'Brien)

The Housing for All Strategy delivers on the Programme for Government commitment to step up housing supply and put affordability at the heart of the housing system, with an ambitious target of 300,000 homes over the next decade for social, affordable and cost rental, private rental and private ownership housing. 54,000 affordable home interventions will be delivered between now and 2030 to be facilitated by local authorities, Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), the Land Development Agency (LDA) and through a strategic partnership between the State and retail banks.

Under this strategy, approximately 10,000 Cost Rental homes will be delivered from 2021 to 2026 by AHBs, Local Authorities and the LDA. AHBs will be supported by Cost Rental Equity Loan (CREL) funding and Local Authorities will be able to avail of funding for Cost Rental delivery through the Affordable Housing Fund, formerly the Serviced Sites Fund. The LDA will also deliver Cost Rental on its own portfolio of sites or through acquisitions under Project Tosaigh. As it is the first year of most of these programmes, pipeline projections are only being developed and numbers may increase over the year as schemes get approved.

Approved Housing Body Delivery

To date, approval in principle has been confirmed so far for approximately 900 Cost Rental homes to be delivered by AHBs under the CREL scheme in the period to 2023. The necessary financial and commercial arrangements in relation to a number of these projects are being completed by the AHBs concerned. Full details of the projects, including specific locations, housing typologies and cost-covering rents, cannot be made public until these arrangements are concluded. Details are set down in the tables below. This table does not include CREL applications at various stages of preparation for submission under an open CREL call, or applications being processed.

Cost Rental CREL Delivery 2021
Cost Rental CREL Delivery 2021
Funding Stream	Development Name	Approved Housing Body	Local Authority Area	No. Cost Rental Units
CREL	Taylor Hill, Balbriggan	Clúid	Fingal County Council	25
CREL	Barnhall, Leixlip	Clúid	Kildare County Council	40
Total				65

Cost Rental CREL Delivery 2022 - 2023
Funding Stream	Development Name	Approved Housing Body	Local Authority Area	No. Cost Rental Units
CREL	Kilcarbery Grange	Tuath	South Dublin County Council	74
CREL	Barnhall, Leixlip	Clúid	Kildare County Council	16
CREL	Parklands, Citywest	Tuath	South Dublin County Council	44
CREL	The Paddocks, Newbridge	Clúid	Kildare County Council	46
CREL	Lancaster Gate, Cork City	Clúid	Cork City County Council	73
CREL	The Paddocks, Newbridge	Clúid	Kildare County Council	50
CREL	Mariner's Cove, Rush	Respond	Fingal County Council	55
CREL	Hansfield, Fingal	Respond	Fingal County Council	31
CREL	TBC	TBC	TBC	457*
Total				846
Total 2021 - 2023				911

*Agreement set to be concluded

Local Authority Delivery

In relation to Affordable Housing Fund supported affordable housing delivery, 50 Cost Rental homes were tenanted last month in Woodside, Enniskerry Road, Stepaside, with rents with approximately 40% below open-market rates for comparable homes in that area.

In relation to affordable purchase and the Affordable Housing Fund, any funding being made available will be underpinned by local authorities' Housing Delivery Action Plans. Local authorities submitted their initial Plans to me last December. Preparation of the Plans is allowing each local authority to assess the level of demand with affordability constraint in their area based on the Housing Need and Demand Assessment and plan provision accordingly. The Plans are being revised and updated by local authorities in the light of ongoing engagement and clarifications, and I expect that they will be ready for publication by the Summer. However, I can confirm the baseline target for local authorities as being 7,550 homes to 2026 (this figure excludes delivery of affordable homes under all other affordability measures). The local authority Housing Delivery Action Plans will provide a comprehensive overview of projected delivery of affordable housing nationally.

The Affordable Housing Fund provides exchequer funding support to local authorities to allow the delivery of housing at affordable prices or rents on local authority lands or via advance purchase arrangements with developers for new housing on developer-owned land. Funding has already been approved for 6 advance purchase arrangements by local authorities to deliver almost 200 housing units in 2022.

Land Development Agency Delivery

The LDA is pursuing a twin-track approach of accelerating near term construction of affordable homes on both state and private land, whilst also working over the longer term to assemble large state-owned land banks capable of delivering thousands of new homes.

Details of the work that the LDA is progressing on public lands that will deliver affordable purchase and cost rental can be found here;

lda.ie/projects-schemes/

In 2022, the LDA will see construction commencing on two of these sites, St Kevin’s Hospital, Cork city (delivering 265 units) and Shanganagh, Shankill in conjunction with Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council (delivering 597 units with 306 cost rental and 91 affordable homes).

Examples of further progress that has been made can be seen in the LDA’s has recent submission of planning applications the LDA including 977 homes in Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, 344 homes in Hackettstown, Skerries, 817 homes in Castlelands, Balbriggan and 219 units in Devoy Barracks, Naas.

In addition to the public lands that the LDA is working on, Project Tosaigh is a market engagement initiative to unlock land with full planning permission that is not being developed by private sector owners due to financing and other constraints, and use it to accelerate the supply of affordable housing. The target under Project Tosaigh is the delivery of 5,000 new homes by 2026 for affordable cost rental or sale to eligible households under affordable purchase arrangements. The first strand of Project Tosaigh involved an expressions of interest (EOI) process, launched in November 2021, to engage builders and landowners in forward purchase agreements, with the intention of securing stock in certain developments in the shorter term. Details of all homes that will be made available under Project Tosaigh will be confirmed when commercial agreements are finalised. Full details of the initiative can be found here;

lda.ie/home-building-partnership/

Additional affordable housing delivery will be facilitated under the provisions of the expanded 20% Part V requirement as and when they arise and subject to the planning process.

The introduction of the 'First Home' shared equity scheme which will support the delivery of 8,000 affordable homes nationally in the period 2022 to 2026.