Eoin Ó Broin
Question:83. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the way in which he plans to spend the €25 million fund for affordable housing announced in budget 2018. [19783/18]
View answerTuesday, 8 May 2018
Questions (83)
Written answers
The development of residential lands owned by local authorities and the Housing Agency for social housing and, where appropriate, for mixed-tenure developments is a major priority under the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan for Housing and Homelessness. Details of some 1,700 hectares of land in local authority and Housing Agency ownership have been published on the Rebuilding Ireland Housing Land Map, with the potential to accommodate some 42,500 homes nationally. All of the mapped sites can be viewed at the following link: http://rebuildingireland.ie/news/rebuilding-ireland-land-map/.
In order to aid local authorities further in delivering affordable housing from their sites, I am providing funding of €25 million, over 2018 and 2019, to unlock local authority-owned lands in our major urban areas specifically for affordable homes to buy or rent. I intend to issue the call for proposals very shortly. The funding will support local authorities to provide infrastructure on sites which they own, in urban areas facing the greatest affordability challenge in order to facilitate affordable housing provision. The funding will also include a contribution from local authorities in a 75/25 split, bringing the total fund to some €33 million, €22 million of which is earmarked for spending in 2018, with the remainder for use in 2019.
In addition, in order to relieve critical infrastructure blockages and enable housing developments to be built on key local authority and private sites at scale, total funding of over €260 million is being allocated under the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF). To date, I have given final approval for 30 projects under LIHAF1, at a cost of some €195 million, which will activate supply of almost 20,000 homes. Grant agreements in respect of those projects have been signed. A second call for proposals for projects to be funded under LIHAF2, will be issued shortly.