Written answers

Tuesday, 24 May 2016

Department of Environment, Community and Local Government

Housing Provision

Photo of Bernard DurkanBernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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257. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he has identified serviced or serviceable and zoned or unzoned lands adjacent to towns and villages in local authority areas experiencing severe housing shortages, which have long housing waiting lists; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11860/16]

Photo of Simon CoveneySimon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The Housing Agency, in consultation with my Department and local authorities, is updating data and developing a detailed database and GIS map of all local authority owned lands, as well as the Land Aggregation Scheme lands, showing their location, size, boundaries and other information. This map will be updated over the course of the Social Housing Strategy to record the development and use of these lands.

Accordingly, sites that have either been transferred to the Housing Agency under the Land Aggregation Scheme or comprise of other suitable local authority lands will be amongst those first considered in order to support the implementation of the Strategy.

Furthermore, in 2014, 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 Study, determined the location and quantity of lands that may be regarded as being undeveloped and available for residential development purposes at 31st March 2014. The results of the survey indicated that there was 17,434 hectares of residential zoned lands nationally which could theoretically enable the construction of over 414,000 dwellings. My Department’s web browser contains a detailed map of the residential land availability study.

In relation to housing in the Dublin Region the Government published Construction 2020 - A Strategy for a Renewed Construction Sector (May, 2014) which included a commitment to establishing a Housing Supply Coordination Taskforce for Dublin with an immediate focus on addressing supply-related issues(Action 2 of the Strategy). This Task Force was convened by my Department and includes representatives of the four Dublin local authorities. More recent date from Task Force concluded that across the four Dublin authorities there is land immediately available with planning permission for development of 27,000 housing units at Q4 2015.

I can therefore assure the Deputy that suitable lands for the provision of housing by all housing providers, whether they are in the public or private housing sectors have been identified.

Availability of sites is therefore not the key issue constraining supply, which points to a range of wider structural issues concerning the viability of development and the funding capacity of providers.

Recognising these structural issues and in line with the Programme for Government commitment on this issue, by mid-summer I intend to finalise an action plan for housing which will look at all options to accelerate delivery of supply and ensure that we are building the right mix of housing types in the right locations and for the various categories of people that need housing both through the provision of publicly funded housing programs and a properly functioning private housing construction sector.

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