Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 1 December 2022
196. Deputy Richard Bruton asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the progress that is being made under project Tosaigh to bring sites with outstanding permissions forward to deliver homes at affordable prices. [56961/22]
View answerHousing for All is the Government’s plan to increase the supply of housing to an average of 33,000 per year over the next decade. Under Housing for All, the Government aims to deliver 54,000 affordable homes between now and 2030, to be facilitated by local authorities, Approved Housing Bodies (AHBs), the Land Development Agency (LDA) and through a strategic partnership between the State and retail banks. 2022 represents the commencement of a very ambitious programme of delivery of affordable housing.
The LDA has an immediate focus on managing the State’s own lands to develop new homes, and regenerate under-utilised sites. In the longer-term, it will assemble strategic land-banks from a mix of public and private lands making these available for housing in a controlled manner, which is expected to bring essential more long-term stability to the Irish housing market.
It is also tasked with unlocking stalled private, planning-consented developments in the shorter-term through its market engagement initiative - Project Tosaigh. An expressions of interest process was launched at the end of 2021, and the LDA now has a pipeline of projects anticipated to deliver affordable for sale and cost rental homes.
The LDA recently launched a renewed expressions of interest process under Project Tosaigh seeking proposals from the homebuilding sector for the forward purchase of unbuilt residential units. Work is underway in assessing proposals submitted.
The LDA have been asked to begin collating information on delivery of affordable homes. It is intended that information on affordable delivery across all delivery streams will be gathered by my Department and I expect that my Department will be in a position to begin reporting on affordable delivery in national quarterly delivery statistics in the near future.
