Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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299. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if the necessary legal provisions are in place to enable local authorities approaching the development of large land banks such as Poolbeg and Ballymastone to provide cost rental housing on those lands in view of the support of Dáil Éireann for cost rental housing expressed in the approval of the motion of 6 March 2018 and his statement that cost rental is a key part of housing strategy. [46294/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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The development of publicly owned residential lands for social and affordable housing is a top priority for this Government. As part of that process, I am determined that cost rental homes become a major part of our rental landscape in the future, making a sustainable impact on housing affordability, national competitiveness, and the attractiveness of our main urban centres, as places to live as well as work.

Cost rental makes up a very important element of housing systems in other cities but is a relatively new concept in Ireland. Therefore, in order to progress cost rental in Ireland, two cost rental pilot projects are being delivered on sites at Emmet Road, Inchicore, and at Enniskerry Road, Dundrum. The Emmet Road site can accommodate some 330 cost rental homes and the project is being delivered by Dublin City Council working with my Department. The Enniskerry Road site will deliver 50 cost rental homes and that project is a joint venture between two Approved Housing Bodies working with Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council and the Housing Agency.

Cost rental will initially be managed on an administrative basis and my Department is preparing a draft administrative cost rental scheme in collaboration with the Housing Agency and the local authorities involved in the pilot project. My Department is also leveraging the expertise and advisory services of the European Investment Bank. The invaluable learning from these pathfinder projects will inform further cost rental projects to be rolled out across other suitable sites. In this regard, it is open to local authorities to pursue cost rental on appropriate sites and I would encourage them to examine this option. The National Development Finance Agency is assisting local authorities in this appraisal.

In order to support local authorities further to prepare their sites for affordable housing, including cost rental, the Government recently committed, under Budget 2019 to provide €310 million under the Serviced Sites Fund (SSF) over the period 2019 to 2021. The funding is available for key facilitating infrastructure, on local authority sites, to support the provision of affordable homes to purchase or rent.

It is important that local authorities identify the most appropriate development options for each of their sites, taking account of all of the available funding streams. For example, the site at Ballymastone, comprising approximately 36 hectares in local authority ownership, will be opened up for residential development as a result of the €14.16 million funding awarded under the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund (LIHAF). This LIHAF project, the Donabate distributor road, is due for completion in mid-2019.

Fingal County Council is proposing a mixed-tenure development for the area, with the capacity to accommodate approximately 1,200 homes. In this regard, the Council commenced the procurement process, via a competitive dialogue procedure, on 12 October.

With regard to the Poolbeg site, in May 2016, the Government designated Poolbeg West as a Strategic Development Zone (SDZ) because of its potential to deliver a large proportion of the extra homes needed in the centre of Dublin. My Department is committed to working with the City Council and the receiver of the SDZ in order to secure additional social and affordable housing from this site over and above Part V obligations as laid out in the adopted planning scheme and I understand that the receiver is engaging with Dublin City Council on the development of the site. There is currently an appeal to An Bord Pleanála in relation to the Poolbeg SDZ planning scheme and the progress of development of the site will be dependent significantly on the nature and timing of the decision of the Board.

Finally, the new Land Development Agency (LDA) will contribute significantly to the delivery of affordable housing. All of the State land developed by the LDA will include 40% social and affordable homes to purchase or rent.