Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 May 2018
44. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the way in which he plans to fast-track the development of housing on local authority owned, State owned or State controlled land that is zoned for residential development. [19843/18]
Amharc ar fhreagra53. Deputy Mick Wallace asked the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government the zoned land owned by the 31 local authorities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [19862/18]
Amharc ar fhreagraI propose to take Questions Nos. 44 and 53 together.
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. To this end, details of some 1,700 hectares of land in local authority and Housing Agency ownership were published on the Rebuilding Ireland Housing Land Map, with the potential to accommodate some 42,500 homes nationally. The map also includes details of some 300 hectares of land in the ownership of other State or semi-State bodies, with the potential to deliver a further 7,500 homes. All of the mapped sites can be viewed at the following link: http://rebuildingireland.ie/news/rebuilding-ireland-land-map/.
To date, State-led residential construction has been primarily aimed at helping to meet the needs of households in the lowest income brackets, i.e. for social housing. With increased Exchequer investment to deliver 50,000 new social homes by 2021, the significant expansion of the social housing build programme is evident in the Quarter 4 2017 Social Housing Construction Status Report, which was published on 19 April. The programme includes 850 schemes (or phases) at the end of last year, delivering over 13,400 homes, a very substantial increase on the 8,430 homes in the programme a year earlier. The full report can be accessed at http://rebuildingireland.ie/news/minister-murphy-publishes-social-housing-construction-status-report-q4-2017/.
In relation to the delivery of affordable homes, I am re-introducing an affordable purchase scheme, under the relevant provisions of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009, and I am determined to establish a substantial cost rental sector, in order to close the affordability gap in housing on a sustainable and long-term basis.
Local authorities are already progressing a number of large mixed-tenure developments on their sites, encompassing large volumes of social, affordable and private market housing. For example, Dublin City Council has two sites, at O'Devaney Gardens and Oscar Traynor Road, being developed on the basis of a 30% social; 20% affordable and 50% private market housing mix, with capacity to deliver over 1,200 new homes. South Dublin County Council is also progressing one of its major sites at Kilcarbery, capable of yielding almost 1,000 new homes on a 30% social and 70% private tenure mix.
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 specifically for affordable homes to buy or rent. Overall, initial estimates suggest that around 3,000 new affordable homes can be made available through a range of schemes and initiatives, with the long-term ambition for some 10,000 additional affordable homes to be provided for sale or rent, as the full range of initiatives are rolled out.
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 €266 million is being allocated under the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF). To date, I have given final approval for 30 projects under LIHAF, 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 will be issued shortly to invite eligible applications for the additional funding.
Finally, from a longer-term strategic perspective, as part of Project Ireland 2040, the Government announced on 16 February its intention to establish a new National Regeneration and Development Agency, which will have a role in managing the State's wider publicly-owned land bank to ensure that overall development needs, including housing, are met. This will involve working primarily with the relevant local authorities, other public bodies and the private sector, with the scope to assemble and rationalise land holdings, whether they are publicly or privately owned, in order to enable the re-purposing of lands that may not be currently used optimally, with regard to wider and long-term public policy and planning objectives.
