John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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217. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the number and location of affordable housing schemes by county; the number of houses that have planning permission; the number in the planning process, that is, permission has been applied for; the number and location of schemes of houses at a pre-planning stage; the number of design teams appointed to design affordable houses; the number of schemes in which local authorities have entered into contracts for the provision of the houses; the price that will be charged for the houses; the location in which the €310 million infrastructure development funds will be spent by county; and the number of affordable houses he expects to deliver on a quarterly basis in 2019. [11398/19]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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Part 5 of the Housing (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2009 provides a new statutory basis for the delivery of affordable housing for purchase. The Act itself contains significant detail on the new arrangements, reducing the extent to which regulations are required. Insofar as regulations are necessary, the most immediate requirement is for regulations dealing with the making of schemes of priority by local authorities. I will be signing regulations which will deal with that issue shortly, which will allow local authorities to finalise their schemes of priorities by June, as required. Further regulations and detailed guidance will issue to local authorities in the coming weeks.

The new affordable housing scheme will be targeted towards low to middle income first time buyer households. In terms of the priority areas for operation of the scheme, this will be influenced by the economic assessments which local authorities were asked to carry out in relation to the affordability issues in their areas.

The affordable housing scheme will be open to applications according as projects are delivered.  In that regard, significant delivery is to be achieved through the €310 million Serviced Site Fund, under which at least 6,200 affordable homes are to be supported over the next three years. An initial ten projects have been approved for €43 million of funding under the SSF’s first call for proposals, which are detailed in the following table:

A second call under the SSF will issue shortly.  It is expected that the first tranche of affordable homes will be delivered next year.

In addition, some 2,350 affordable homes will be delivered on mainly publicly owned lands being supported through the Local Infrastructure Housing Activation Fund, while 5,600 further homes will benefit from a LIHAF-related cost reduction.  The work of the Land Development Agency will also be of crucial importance in terms of delivering more affordable housing; the initial portfolio of sites that the Agency has access to will have the potential, over the short to medium term, to deliver 3,000 affordable homes in line with the Government policy of achieving 30% affordable housing on State lands generally.

In parallel with this, the Dublin local authorities continue to progress a number of other significant housing projects on publicly owned lands, including the redevelopment of O'Devaney Gardens and a site at Oscar Traynor Road in Dublin city, yielding some 250 affordable homes, and 380 cost rental homes to be delivered between projects at the former St. Michael's Estate in Inchicore and at Enniskerry Road in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown.  The timing of delivery under these projects is contingent on the completion of planning and procurement in the first instance, but the local authorities are working to achieve delivery as quickly as possible.