Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 24 March 2015
856. Deputy Brian Walsh asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the quantity of land that has been identified as suitable for the development of social housing within the ownership of each local authority. [11094/15]
View answerA Departmental audit of the availability of local authority land was carried out in 2010 and a further survey of lands available for housing was carried out in 2012. The 2010 audit identified approximately 600 local authority owned sites intended for residential purposes. The 2012 survey identified 525 hectares of serviced land owned by local authorities as available for housing purposes. Currently specific sites are being selected by local authorities for their housing programmes over the next 6 years.
In conjunction with the publication of the Social Housing Strategy 2020, in November 2014, the Housing Agency, in consultation with my Department and local authorities, is updating the data and developing a more extensive and detailed database and GIS map of local authority owned sites in order to support the implementation of the Strategy. The database will include all local authority owned lands and Land Aggregation Scheme lands showing their location, size, boundaries and other information. This map will be up-dated over the course of the Strategy to record the development and use of lands.
Local authorities are currently in the process of returning land data and assessment results and a full analysis of this data will commence in April 2015.
