Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 September 2020
400. Deputy Catherine Connolly asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the amount of land owned by the State that has been zoned for residential development; the estimated number of housing units that could be built on such land; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [21164/20]
View answerGiven the diversity of state bodies and agencies and multiplicity of landholdings for a range of different purposes, there isn’t currently one central comprehensive database of all lands in state ownership. It is not, therefore, possible to conclusively identify all such lands that may be zoned for residential development or to estimate the total number of houses that could be built on such land.
As part of its remit, the Land Development Agency (LDA) is working to develop an inventory of state owned lands to allow for better management of these State land assets, including their strategic planning and urban regeneration potential. This database will contain information on relevant public lands including location, mapping and title. It is intended that the forthcoming LDA Bill will provide that all state bodies will be obliged to assist the LDA in the compilation of the database, were appropriate.
The LDA has an immediate focus on managing the State’s own lands, as they are released, to develop new homes. In the longer-term, the LDA will assemble strategic land-banks. in order to bring essential long-term stability to the Irish housing market. On establishment, the LDA has been given access to an initial tranche of nine sites that have near-term delivery potential for 3,600 new homes.
This will build on work that was completed under the Rebuilding Ireland Strategy, in relation to a State Lands Map which includes site details and information on over 700 local authority and Housing Agency owned sites amounting to approximately 1,700 hectares in total. This equates to a capacity (based on a national average of 35 units per hectare) of 59,500 housing units. The Rebuilding Ireland land map is available at https://rebuildingireland.ie/news/rebuilding-ireland-land-map/
Initiatives underway to develop housing on State lands, include the Service Sites Fund (SSF) which has a total of €310 million available support local authorities in developing affordable housing projects and ongoing work being undertaken by Local Authorities to progress the development of new social housing on lands in their ownership, through their social housing construction programmes.
More details of the social housing construction programmes can be found in the Social Housing Construction Status Report (CSR). The most recent publication covers the period up to the end of Q4 2019 and was published on 14 May 2020. This report is available on the Rebuilding Ireland website at https://rebuildingireland.ie/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Construction-Status-Report-Q4-2019-1.pdf
With regard to the quantum of all lands zoned for residential development nationally, my Department, in conjunction with local authority planning departments, published a Residential Land Availability Survey in February 2015, covering all lands zoned for residential development in statutory local authority development plans and local area plans across Ireland. The survey showed the location and quantity of lands that may be regarded as being undeveloped and available for residential development purposes in each local authority area, but did not include details of whether the lands were in public ownership or owned privately, or whether they were fully serviced for development purposes.
The aggregate area of all such private and public land identified in 2015 amounted to 17,434 hectares which, given a range of densities applicable to whether the lands are in small villages or in larger towns and cities and as determined by the relevant local authorities, was estimated to ultimately enable the construction of in excess of 400,000 dwellings.
