Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Social Democrats)
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157. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the basis for his direction to the Dublin local authorities earlier in 2015 not to rezone any more land for housing; his rationale for this, given the indications that there is significant hoarding of land by housing landowners; his views that this is a factor in the depressed supply of housing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39754/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I have not at any time directed the Dublin local authorities not to rezone anymore land for housing. However, Minister of State Coffey and I jointly wrote to the Chief Executives of the four Dublin Local Authorities on 10 June 2015 in the context of their role in preparing and finalising the development plans for their areas. At that time my Department’s analysis and that of the Dublin Housing Supply and Co-ordination Task Force was that there was sufficient supply of land to meet immediate housing requirements and that proposals to zone any additional residential land would have to be strongly evidentially grounded and consistent with core strategies.

We strongly encouraged the Chief Executives to focus around practical measures that can be adopted to boost housing supply and to ensure that good quality housing in suitable locations is available at affordable prices. I firmly believe that increasing supply is key to addressing the range of housing issues we face today.

As you will be already aware the Housing Supply Coordination Taskforce for Dublin, with an immediate focus on addressing supply-related issues, was convened by my Department and includes representatives of the four Dublin local authorities. The First Report of the Task Force undertook an analysis of planning permissions in place for developments of 20 housing units or more and concluded that across the four Dublin authorities there is land immediately available with planning permission for development of 12,785 houses and 7,925 apartments, equating to circa. 3 years supply. A further 25,507 units were deemed permissible in the immediate to short term.

A further study of additional zoned residential lands that could be brought on stream by the Task Force has examined infrastructural constraints and has identified specific infrastructural interventions possible to facilitate additional housing supply in the Dublin Region, which will inform investment planning cycles of relevant Government Departments, Agencies and other infrastructure providers such as Irish Water.

Finally, I have just announced a range of initiatives to be implemented from January, including enhanced supply of more affordable starter homes in key locations through a targeted rebate of development contributions in Dublin and Cork for housing supplied under certain price levels, and New National Apartment Planning Guidelines to be issued by me, which will have the effect of reducing the cost of apartment building in Dublin City by approximately €20,000 per unit, on average.

These measures will combine with previous announcements, including the introduction of a vacant site levy, new Part V arrangements and 20,000 starter homes for the Greater Dublin area to be funded by NAMA. Combined they make badly needed new housing development in our urban centres much more economically viable.