Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 18 September 2018
813. Deputy Catherine Martin asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government his plans for the development of the Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum for housing; the scale and type of housing planned; the percentage of affordable and social homes; the timeline for the development of same; his further plans for a cost-rental public housing model for the entire site; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37881/18]
View answerOn 17 September 2018, I launched the new Land Development Agency (LDA) which will act as a new commercial State body to actively manage development land with two primary objectives.
The first objective is to ensure the optimal usage of State land and coordinating their regeneration and development and opening up key sites not being optimally used, especially for the delivery of new homes.
The second objective is to drive strategic land assembly through mechanisms that will bring together both public and private sector interests in assuring the timely preparation and release of strategic land for development in a counter-cyclical manner. Such counter-cyclical action will be aimed at stabilising any tendency towards volatility in development land values, securing more of the increase in such values as a result of the planning and infrastructure investment processes for the common good and thereby driving increased affordability through better and more cost-competitive land availability.
The Agency will act as a national centre of expertise, working with and supporting local authorities, public bodies and other interests, to harness public lands as catalysts to stimulate regeneration and wider investment and to achieve compact, sustainable growth, with a particular emphasis on complex regeneration projects and the provision of affordable housing.
With regard to the Central Mental Hospital site in Dundrum, discussions have been ongoing between the landowners [Office of Public Works/Health Service Executive] and the LDA and it has been agreed that the LDA will manage the pre-development activities to prepare the site for future development, pending the decanting of the existing users of the site to alternative facilities, which is anticipated to conclude in Q3 2020, after which a development programme is anticipated to commence, subject to securing the necessary planning and other relevant consents in the meantime.
Initial assessments place the potential development yield from the site at around 1,500 new homes. In addition and as a result of the Government’s new public lands affordability requirements agreed in the context of bringing forward the LDA, a minimum of 30% of any housing developed on public lands must be reserved for affordable purposes, in addition to the 10% social housing requirement of Part V of the Planning and Development Act.
The immediate priority for the site is the preparation of a development strategy by the LDA in the coming months, including how the social and affordable housing elements, including any cost rental element, will be deployed.
