Brian Stanley (Laois, Sinn Fein)
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760. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the details of the lands owned by each local authority and zoned for social housing. [6382/16]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour)
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The Housing Agency, in consultation with my Department and local authorities, is gathering data and developing a detailed database and GIS map of local authority owned lands, as well as the Land Aggregation Scheme lands, showing their location, size, boundaries and other information.

Furthermore, my Department, in conjunction with local authority planning departments, carried out a national survey of all lands zoned for residential development in statutory local authority development plans and local area plans across Ireland. This exercise, the Residential Land Availability Survey 2014, published in February 2015, determined the location and quantity of lands that may be regarded as being undeveloped and available for residential development purposes at 31 March 2014. This survey measured the total amount of lands whether owned privately or by the local authority that have been identified for housing development in the various local authority development plans and that are the highest priority for development.

The area of such lands amounts to 17,434 hectares, which given a range of densities appropriate to whether the areas are in small villages or larger towns and cities and as determined by the relevant local authorities, could theoretically enable the construction of over 414,000 dwellings.

The Residential Land Availability Survey 2014 is available on my Department’s website at: .