Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

325. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government when the new land development agency will be operational; the remit the agency will have in making land available to housing associations and developers for the development of retirement villages; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44151/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Land Development Agency (LDA), which was established on 13 September 2018, is aimed at:

- ensuring the optimal usage of State lands, coordinating their regeneration and development and opening up key sites not being optimally used,especially for delivery of new homes; and 

- driving strategic land assembly through mechanisms that will bring together both public and private sector interests in ensuring the timely preparation and release of strategic land for development in a counter-cyclical manner.

Such counter-cyclical action will focus on stabilising any tendency towards volatility in development land values, securing more of the increase in such values as a result of the planning and infrastructure investment processes for the common good and thereby driving increased affordability through better and more cost-competitive land availability.

In parallel with the establishment of the LDA, the Government has also put in place a new public land affordability requirement that will ensure at least 10% of public lands are developed for social housing and 30% for affordable purposes, to be progressed on a site by site basis. 

These new policies will help to ensure more social housing delivery, more affordable housing delivery and more housing supply in general, while at the same time securing the delivery of sustainable and mixed tenure communities. The mix of different types of housing, including housing for older people, will fall to be considered on a case by case basis as sites are brought forward for development.