In April 2010, my Department advised housing authorities of revised arrangements for the funding of land used for social housing and sought information from them on local authority residential land holdings for the purpose of ensuring the optimal use of the lands in question.
In July 2010 Housing and Sustainable Communities Ltd. was established as a subsidiary of the National Building Agency. At present the company is involved in the management of land transferred to it from local authorities under the above Land Aggregation Scheme. There are no staff employed directly by the company and the 3 staff overseeing the implementation of the scheme remain employees of the National Building Agency.
The cost in 2010 for managing the scheme is estimated to be in the region of €100,000. The annual costs associated with the running of the scheme will depend on the amount of land transferred and the costs associated with managing the land. It is anticipated that some income will arise as a result of the use of the land, which will be used to offset costs.
Details in relation to applications received under the scheme have been provided separately in reply to Question No. 41 and 193 on today's Order Paper