Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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272. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his views on whether mixed tenure and sustainable community planning principles that are in use throughout local authorities are impeding the development of social and affordable housing construction developments of scale; and his further views on whether there is a trade-off between scale and speed of delivery of social housing and these planning guidelines. [8516/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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The policy of Sustainable Communities, that is encouraging the provision of a choice of house type, size and tenure within a single neighbourhood - referred to as the “sustainable neighbourhood” - has been Government policy since 2007. Its objective is to avoid the significant effects of social isolation and limiting of opportunities that can occur with large mono - tenure estates, frequently necessitating the irregeneration and remediation at a later stage with consider able cost exposure to the State. This policy approach was reaffirmed in the Social Housing Strategy 2020 published in November 2014 which further defined sustainable neighbourhoods as “areas where an efficient use of land, high quality urban design and effective integration in the provision of physical and social infrastructure such as public transport, schools, amenities and other facilities combine to create places people want to live”.

My Department has produced considerable planning guidance, including Sustainable Residential Development in Urban Areas (2010) and the Manual for Urban Roads andStreets(2013) to assist local authorities to promote Sustainable Communities. In addition, the Department guidance document Quality Housing for Sustainable Communitiesseeks to promote quality and value for money in publicly funded housing.

While delivering on this policy approach may add to the challenge of housing delivery in certain circumstances, I believe that sustainable neighbourhood housing can be delivered on in a timely manner. Rebuilding Ireland is predicated on that objective and, with respect to social housing, €5.35 billion will be invested over the period of the Action Plan, delivering some 47,000 social housing units.

This is an ambitious target but there is now a significant pipeline of projects in place, as set out in my Department’s recently published Social Housing Construction Projects Report, that will address housing need while still respecting the important goal of creating sustainable neighbourhoods. The report outlines details of some 8,430 social housing units in more than 500 developments nationwide, backed by a €1.3 billion budget for 2017 alone. The units concerned are at various stages in the development process, from initial capital investment approval to on-site development stage.

It should be noted that these developments do not include projects which are being progressed through public private partnerships, vacant units which are being brought back into use or acquisitions.

Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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273. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if legislative changes will be required for new affordable rental models that have been proposed; and if the affordable units proposed as part of a development (details supplied) will be affordable rental or owner occupier units. [8517/17]

Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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As the Deputy will be aware, I announced stage 1 funding approval of €17,859,976 for Dublin City Council to progress the delivery of 56 Social Housing dwellings at the site concerned last December. These dwellings benefit from an existing approval under the Planning Acts for 110 social and affordable units on a portion of the site. This is the first phase of a mixed tenure re-development of the entire site to deliver approximately 600 dwellings in total, with a mix of 30% social, 20% affordable and 50% private housing. In this regard, I am advised by Dublin City Council that the site will be developed jointly with a private developer under a development agreement, to deliver a total of approximately 300 private, 120 affordable and the remaining 124 social dwellings to achieve the 600 dwellings, at the agreed tenure ratio for the site.

The question of legislative changes and affordable rental or owner occupier units will be considered in the context of the specific proposals from Dublin City Council.